I used to be afraid of birds. I didn't trust them. I didn’t trust their ability to fly. I didn’t trust their ability to take off or dive-bomb me at any moment. They made me nervous the way they’d stand in the road as you’re driving toward them like they don’t even notice you, yet at the very last second (almost like magic) they’d find their way to safety.
I remember going to the zoo and walking through the aviary. That place was the worst. Hundreds of captive birds flying around a relatively small enclosure just waiting, I thought, to attack me. I don’t know when this fear started. I had no intense run-in with a feathered monster, that I can recall. I just had a general, overall mistrust of them.
Except for cardinals.
When I was younger, around ten or eleven years old, my Great Aunt Max passed away. My aunt was at her side in her hospice room during her final moments. As the story goes, just outside the window twelve bright red cardinals were perched in a bush and it covered her with a sense of peace during those last heartbreaking moments.
Cardinals became a big thing in our family after that. We gifted each other candles, towels, and other trinkets with the crimson bird on them. And I never forgot that story. Throughout my teens, through college, and on into my twenties I would spot cardinals only occasionally. Only when needed. Only when I was experiencing complete overwhelm or despair. With tears in my eyes, or a pit in my stomach, I would spot the mystical red creature perched delicately on a branch, or the chain-link fence of the backyard I grew up in, and the heartache would transform into hope. Peace.
While the cardinal became a symbol of hope for me, it still struck me as otherworldly. Something unattainable. Fleeting. Unconsciously this bird began to represent that peace existed, but it won’t last but a moment. In the blink of an eye, it will disappear. And come to think of it, that pretty much sums up the state of my heart for basically my first three decades of life. Peace exists, but not for long.
In the fall of 2018, my husband and I, along with our dog Farrah, moved into our first home. The previous residents so graciously left a bird feeder hanging in the big tree out back. Cory immediately purchased a bag of birdseed, eager to fill up the feeder and invite as many Nashville inhabiting avian species as possible over for a backyard feast. As you might imagine, I was initially horrified. Visions of a potential Blue Jay Blitzkrieg every time I set foot on my deck left me terror-struck.
I thought for sure Farrah would be enraged by these little creatures landing on her new turf constantly. Lord knows she would tear a squirrel to shreds if she could (I won’t even get into the baby raccoon incident… RIP). That little pup would sit in the yard for HOURS hunting. Waiting. As soon as a squirrel would make his way down the tree trunk to the spilled seed in the grass for a little munch, Farrah would go wild. She almost caught one. Almost.
But, to my surprise, she left the birds alone completely. They could land within a few feet of her – Blue Jays, Sparrows, Goldfinches, Starlings, Woodpeckers, Doves, Chickadees, Cardinals – but she was unphased. I was perplexed. While she turned into a ferocious little fireball toward any other wildlife intruder, she seemingly lived in complete harmony with her new feathered friends.
Unlike me, she trusted them. Unlike me, she wasn’t afraid. Unlike me, she seemed to understand that peace might flutter away from time to time, but it will come back as long as you keep feeding it.
Daily, Farrah demonstrated her genuine trust in these animals. Over time, my own fear and mistrust fluttered away, but the peace remains.
Farrah may have passed on from this world, but I can still feel her presence – especially in those otherworldly cardinals who stop by the yard each day to remind me that peace exists, and it’s never far.