Not just for the birds

Found here

I just returned from Upstate New York, having gone back to pack up my mother, sell the house, and drive her across country to live with me in the West. It was all done in 11 days. I am tired but relieved that we are done with it all.

Something I noticed while I was home was the huge number of tree and barn swallows. They were everywhere. Up the road from our friend's home, on the telephone wires winding past the barn, hundreds of swallows sat shoulder to shoulder facing the sun. From time to time, one or another would swoop off the wire and down after gnats or bugs high in the air. Walking past them, I could hear their excited high pitched chirping to each other. Barnyard gossips. Adolescent daredevils and

show-offs. But close together and seemingly unhappy unless they could be in close proximity to another bird relative.

I looked for them every time I drove up that road. I was not disappointed.

I had forgotten all about barn swallows and how much I love them, living in a climate that is hostile to so many living creatures--hot, hot, hot, and very urban. Life here has become the norm and my memories of home and the sweet charm of these feathered busy bodies had faded. Until I drove down Delaney Road. There they were, lined up on the wire. Some were swooping past the car window, their wings making little whirring sounds. I remembered Pete and Sally, our little visitors who made a nest on our back porch one year. The barn across our road had come down and they needed a new place to raise a family. We were delighted to come home one day to hear their high-pitched chatter and see them up in the eaves outside our kitchen

window. There, three little swallows hatched, and three little blue bald heads poked up over the edge of the nest. We watched with delight, for several weeks, while their feathers grew and they took their first fluttery flights across the porch. We had to keep Tiger the cat inside for those days. Finally, they all flew away for the winter season and all was quiet in the snowy weather.

I thought a lot about these little birds over the last two weeks. It was a very sad trip to make. Mother simply can't live in that old house alone any longer. It is not possible for her to chop the wood and carry it in for the woodstove in the kitchen. Her legs are too short and nerves too frazzled to drive the lawnmower. The snow is too deep for her to drive in, leaving her isolated most of the winter. She can't endure being alone without my father, her late companion of 56 years. So we had to sell the family home.

The schedule was frantic--I hit the ground running when I arrived in New York--packing up a number of boxes that day, even after being on a red-eye flight all night. The entire four-bedroom house had to be packed up, in addition to the garage and storage building, plus a basement full of canned fruit and vegetables. The whole time however, there were friends and family filling boxes, dissembling model train tracks, packing the truck, keeping Mother occupied. We stayed with our friends the last two nights and enjoyed their superb cooking, games of Triaminoes, and many laughs. My cousins dissembled model train tracks and cleared an intolerable hobby room. Charlie and Glendon emptied the house and garage of all items that could possibly be sold at a yard sale they are holding for us. Lois prayed the whole time for us from across country. All that was done could never have been accomplished without them. We worked as a team, chattering and laughing as we went.

I felt truly held up and supported from all directions. It reminded me of those hundreds of barn swallows, snuggled together on the telephone wires. Life is truly best when we lean into others who understand us, and face the brightness. It's a lesson I hope never to forget.