Sometimes it takes a couple days of cogitation before I recognize a sign. You’ve heard me say many times that Mr. Virgo sends me birds to let me know he is near. Strictly speaking, souls in Heaven have no connection to us here on earth. Dogma dictates our loved ones cannot see or contact us. I can’t quote you a scripture to support this, but I would not doubt there is one. That being said, since the Discovery Channel has not sent a team of investigators and a film crew to the other side and brought back photographic evidence of what Heaven is like, I prefer to believe our loved ones can and do watch out for us. It gives me hope. I physically saw Mr. Virgo’s spirit leave his body. I know for a fact the spiritual realm is real. Therefore, I believe he sends me birds.

The first such occurrence happened early on after Mr. Virgo died unexpectedly of a heart attack. It was late summer and I had recently returned from my three month sojourn in the wilderness and backroads of Colorado. For the first eighteen months, I brought a good sized rock to place around the perimeter of Mr. Virgo’s grave. I had just placed several rocks from my trip and sat back in the car next to his grave so I could get out of the sun. I was overcome with grief and laid my head on the steering wheel and sobbed…that loud, raspy, snotty cry that comes in the early weeks and months after such a profound loss. As I started to regain some control, I heard a bird…fairly close…singing. I looked to my left, and there…on the boundary post not three feet from me…was a mountain bluebird. He was looking straight at me, singing his bluebird song, and tilting his head this way and that as he watched me…intently. I held my breath, afraid to move because I didn’t want to scare him away. He stayed there for the longest time, then finally flew off into a thicket across the road.

For months, every time I went to the cemetery, bluebirds would come. First one, then two…then five, eight, twelve! Flocks of bluebirds! One warm spring day a year after Mr. Virgo’s death, I had the door open and my feet propped up on the door handle. Suddenly, three bluebirds swooped down and landed on the top of the open door. Two more flew in and rested on the side view mirror. I was stunned! As I traveled, birds would come sit near me. One morning in Missouri, as I was programming my GPS, I heard a tap, tap, tapping on the driver’s side window. I looked and there was a goldfinch sitting on the little edge of door, tapping on the glass. This has continued on and on…for four and a half years.

Saturday night, I had a dream. A nightmare, really. Mr. Virgo is seldom in my dreams. As a matter of fact, my dream life has largely vanished since his death. But Saturday night, he came and sat on my bed. He looked at me and said he was leaving. I woke up in tears. It felt like a “breaking up with you” kind of leaving. It tugged at the far corners of the abandonment issues I have largely put to rest. It didn’t feel good and made me a little sad. Then, Sunday night…the owls came. Two BIG Great Horned Owls…in the daylight…in a highly urban area…50 feet from me. They sat there in the tree for twenty minutes or so…softly hooting…when first one, then the other, soared on silent wings off to another area. It didn’t really occur to me that Mr. Virgo could have sent those owls…until the second dream.

Sunday night, he came again. This time he was…softer somehow. Hazy. Ethereal. His voice was thinner…farther off. Again, Mr. Virgo told me he was going away. This time it felt…kinder, gentler. I woke up and lay there in the dark. This didn’t feel like abandonment. This felt like putting the binding on a quilt, tucking the ends in neat and tidy before placing the anchor stitch. Mr. Virgo was saying goodbye. I’ve felt him with me many times in the last four and a half years. Little has seen him. She told me every time he looks at me, he smiles. She was six at the time. I think he knows I’m really, truly ok. I think he knows I’m safe with Mr. FixIt. I think he knows he doesn’t have to watch over me anymore. Does this mean my grief is “over”? No…it means it’s morphed into yet another form. This shape-shifting beast has been largely tamed at this point. It will raise its head every now and again, but for the most part…it is healed. Scarred, but healed. Maybe this has more to do with ME letting go.

I will always notice the birds and I will smile in remembrance. But, I will never again think of them as coming from Mr. Virgo. ❤️

“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭4:16‬ ‭NIV‬‬