By Mary Morrell
Freelance columnist
Grief is love not wanting to let go
“A great religious tradition does not deny the pain of loss. In the words of the Kotzker Rebbe, ‘The only whole heart is a broken one.’ No awake spirit can move through this world without enduring a broken heart. There is nothing real that makes life painless. Accepting the pain of living, knowing one’s heart will — and should — be broken, is the beginning of wisdom.” — David Wolpe
Anyone who knows me well knows I love birds, so it wasn’t unusual for a co-worker to lead me to a young finch that was having trouble flying and repeatedly making his way into the busy road around our building.
As I approached him, with the mother swooping around overhead, I noticed something unusual about the way he was cocking his head. Then I realized, sadly, the reason. He had no eyes.
At first I hoped it was just a matter of his eyes not having yet opened but I soon became fairly certain that he simply was born without eyes. Now came the usual dilemma — what to do with him.
If I left him there he would inevitably end up getting run over. Even if he could fly, he wouldn’t survive without sight. So I scooped him up and took him to my office. I just happened to have a small wooden bird cage in my office as a decoration so I placed him inside with some water soaked grass while I made some phone calls to animal rescue organizations.
I found one that specialized in birds, only to be warned that wild birds do not fare well in captivity and one without eyes was destined to die. How would it eat or get its water?
If I took the bird in to them and they determined it really had no eyes I had to accept their decision to euthanize him.
I decided to try and care for him myself. The vet recommended moist dog food which I put on the end of a chop stick and placed around his beak — in front, above, sideways. Occasionally he would nibble but most of the time he took nothing. The same for water. I left little tiny bowls of both in his cage hoping he would find them, but he didn’t.
He sang in his cage, or maybe he was calling for his mom, I don’t know but it was sweet none-the-less and endeared him to me all the more. I worried over him as I would have over any pet I have ever had and spent a sleepless night wondering what would happen when I had to leave him to go to work the next day. I could only hope one of my sons would be in and out and able to offer him some nourishment.
The next day I came home from work to find the cage empty and my son sitting nearby watching TV.
“Where is my bird,” I asked him, instinctively knowing the answer.
“He died. I buried him when I got home,” he replied, feeling bad himself as an animal lover.
I went into the bathroom and cried and soon the crying turned to sobs. Why was I so upset? I had spared him from being crushed or flying into a building. I had tried my best.
As I noticed myself in the mirror, a tear stained face with red nose and eyes, I finally realized what was happening.
The empty cage, the absence of singing, were reminders of a friendship lost, an estrangement for which there is no bridge to reconciliation.
It’s always amazing how the small losses of life can dredge up the pain of bigger losses that have not yet been grieved. But as author Ann Linnea wrote, “The cycle of grief has its own timetable. Until that cycle is honored and completed we are moving along life’s path with an anchor down.”
That moment in time was the beginning of the cycle for me and a time for pulling up anchor so I could move forward. Still there were times when I felt foolish for grieving so deeply at the loss of a friend. But as God would have it, another friend was the gentle voice reminding me that “grief is love not wanting to let go.”
There’s nothing foolish in that.
*The attached/referenced article was originally published in The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, and is protected under U.S. and international copyright law