Bold Silence

The silence of night’s eerie nature brings forth a desire to take a stroll down the paths commonly used by cyclists and joggers during the active day. As I walk along the path that leads to the park. I use the time effectively, and while relaxing I consider the options and opportunities for me to evaluate in my life. Walking with focused thoughts on how I should cultivate my ambition further than what I am currently doing.

As I was approaching the park my attention was drawn to something, I thought looked a little unusual. It was as if the open grass field had an odd lump in the ground or a newly placed rock. It’s dark so the distance I am currently at on this path connecting to the park makes it hard for me to identify what it was that I was seeing.

I have started to come close to the connection of the path and the park now and I am starting to tell that there is a barn owl resting with it’s eyes closed. I can only see the side of this owl at the moment, I may be facing the owl, but the owl is facing to my right. It’s a little unusual to me to see an owl on the ground, resting at night, and being in a wide-open field. Are these common for this species? I don’t believe it is but I’m not a professional.

Considering how I thought the behavior was unusual I decided to approach the owl a little closer to make sure it wasn’t injured. I approached slowly and still kept some distance from the owl. Maybe about four feet so I wouldn’t frighten it and cause it to fly away. From my observation I didn’t find any damage or injuries on this owl.

I admired this owl for a couple of minutes. To actually be in such a close presence to one is amazing. As a spiritual person I fully believe in connections to spirit with animals. I felt so excited with the decision I made to come out for a nightly stroll which allowed me to have this experience with nature. After another minute or so the barn owl’s head slowly turned ninety degrees to where the head faced me. When I say slow, I mean slow like when you pull the anchor wheel up on a ship kind of slow. Once this owl’s head faced me directly it opened its eyes and stared directly into mine.

This, this I felt was very enticing, and mesmerizing the entire time we looked at one another’s eyes. I saw those fully black eyes with glimmering highlights from the moon and other reflective surfaces as a message for me to acknowledge and prepare for the incoming death of a loved one. I accepted this message and felt grateful to receive it because it helps with my own preparation for what could be the inevitable. Many consider this an omen, but I don’t consider this kind of message negative in anyway. To me it’s like “Caution” some huge event is about to happen in your life.

I wrote down my experience in a journal and kept it to see if this message was true or that I misinterpreted the situation. That owl, that beautiful owl was most definitely looking at me, I feel that there is more to this than just a staring contest between human and owl.

… 16 Weeks Later…

I haven’t noticed anything yet for what I considered to be a message. I attempted to think of who could be the one to pass away. I only have one living grandparent left who’s in his mid to late eighties so I’m wondering if it will be him. He seems like the highest candidate to me so because of this conclusion I’m checking up on him a little more frequently than I used to. I don’t want to be one of those family members that regret not being in contact with other members before it’s too late. No of course not. I still vividly remember that barn owl. It felt like a huge impact to me. It’s been a while now since I saw it, is it really only an experience of human to animal contact?

… Another 8 Weeks have gone by…

I’m happy and disappointed at the same time that no loved one has passed away. I’m happy for this of course but what I am disappointed in is that there isn’t any underlying meaning to what I interpreted. I think I’ve come to the conclusion that the experience was awesome alone. I’m still going to keep communicating though, I still think it’s important. For now, I’m going to just go back into focus of my daily cooking activities at work. I had to call dad for help with taking me to work after a few days. I just couldn’t find a ride and he said he didn’t mind because he had to go out anyway. When the day approached it was weird to me because my dad is always early. I’m starting to feel time pressure for possibly being late. I decided to call him, and I could immediately tell on the phone that my father hasn’t been taking his medication for his mental condition. Sometimes he can be violent when he doesn’t. My significant other offered me a ride to work because of time pressure so I let dad know he didn’t need to bring me anymore. I also decided to tell my sister since she visits him more than I do just to maybe go with company when visiting. She said “Oh, maybe that’s what it was.” I thought that reply was strange, so I asked her what she meant. She said that she felt so sick and nauseous suddenly that was so intense she almost left work. I thought that it was a little weird but didn’t think too much into it at this time.

…2 Weeks have now gone by…

Today is Mother’s Day May 12, 2019. My work at the restaurant is expecting a busy weekend for Mother’s Day, my sister’s birthday is also tomorrow May 13th, I’d like to get a gift for her tomorrow since I’ll have the day off. I’ve been at work for an hour now and it’s been very busy. My boss called to me in the kitchen asking me to come closer to him because has bad news. He was known to joke so I didn’t think the bad news was a serious matter at the time and then I noticed my sister in front of the counter in tears. I thought something may have happened to her significant other or one of her dogs. I stopped everything I was doing and went up to my sister who was in hysterics. I didn’t even wait to listen to what my boss was going to say, I just immediately went to my sister. I value the well being of others above all else in my life.

She was crying very hard; it took her a few minutes to calm down and speak well enough for me to understand what was wrong. She told me that she found our father’s corpse that was rotting, inflated like a balloon and that he was as black as a garbage bag. I found this shocking too, but I felt as the older sister I should be the calm one in this situation for my siblings. Not only was it Mother’s Day but it was the day before my sister’s birthday. She grew up being called “daddy’s girl” so I imagine the shock and pain she must be going through. I knew that she’d have difficulty sleeping for a while.

I told my work that I won’t be there for a while and I’m going to take my leave. They understood and let me go. My sister and I decided that our mom should know. Our parents separated when we all left the nest, so she lived somewhere else. We went to see her. My mom thought it was a Mother’s Day visit, and she was bustling about cleaning or cooking, whatever it was she was doing. We had to get her attention by yelling “MOM” together. She finally stopped and noticed my sister and I were holding hands and that she was crying. I spoke up and said we have bad news. She asked "What, what’s wrong?" and we informed her that dad has passed away. She was shocked too but for her it was more of an immediate surreal feeling. She asked how he died. My sister only just found him so there was no confirmation yet but, both of us were convinced he had a heart attack. All our faith and belief was on that. Mom thought maybe suicide, but we didn’t agree. There was no way.

It’s now my sister’s birthday and we are spending the day to clean out the house our father lived in. He wasn’t a tidy person and for many would be considered a slob. I feel empathy towards my sister. To not only did she find our father dead on Mother’s Day but to spend her birthday cleaning the house knowing that he won’t be there again. I asked her what made her decide to go to dad’s out of the blue. She said our grandfather asked her to because dad wasn’t responding to any of his calls and wanted her to check up on him. I feel empathy for my little brother too. He lives out of town and doesn’t visit that often. To hear such news and not being able to comfort him too makes me sad. He did take time to help us to clean dad’s house at least which allowed us for a small family reunion.

They confirmed that dad passed away from cardiovascular disease. My sister and I were convinced before they even went to examine the body that it was a heart attack. It’s like we knew, and I keep thinking back to that owl. I decided to tell my sister I knew a loved one would pass away. She asked me what I meant, and I told her the same story about the barn owl, but I wasn’t sure if I interpreted the message correctly because it’s been months since that happened and I assumed it would have been our grandfather. I never expected it to be our dad. I am quite amazed by this because not only did I actually receive the message, but I was only to acknowledge that a loved one will pass away, it was not to tell me who or when but to prepare for the inevitability of it. The bold and silent message of the barn owl has spoken very loudly to me and I can now tell others my story.