Cries of the Barn Owl

Yesterday was my tenth birthday. Normally, I would have woken up to my two older brothers, Seth & Jason, singing their embarrassing birthday version of “Lovely Rita” except they change the lyric “Lovely Rita, Meter Maid” to “Lovely Leda, Birthday Girl”. Then, my dad would make his “special birthday pancakes” which really just means they have sprinkles. And that night, we would all go to dinner at my favorite restaurant, “Rocco’s Waterfront”. But, none of that happened this year. Instead, here we all are dressed in black, staring at my father’s cherrywood casket. “Cherrywood is a classic”, that’s what the man at the funeral home told us. “It’s a bit richer than the mahogany, but you really can’t go wrong with any of the darker woods.” He made it sound as if we were picking out new cabinets for the kitchen.

Thunder rolls in the distance, and the preacher makes some sort of joke about speeding things up to get everyone out of the rain, but I miss it. All of the emotions building up inside of me are becoming harder and harder to tamp down, and just then— a cry rips through the air. The sound is so heart wrenching that for a moment, I think it’s me. I fear that everything I’m feeling has burst out of me, beyond my control. “Wow… That’s a barn owl”, my uncle Jack, standing with his arm around me, mumbles just loud enough for me to hear. I look up at him as he gives me a smile. Somewhere between the weight of his arm, the warmth in his smile, and the cry of the barn owl; my grief settles down. The preacher asks everyone to bow their heads in prayer. And just like that, it’s all over.

We make it back to our car moments before the sky opens up. In my last glimpse at our small family cemetery, I see rain pouring into the hole that will forever hold my father. I think about the items my brothers and I put into the casket: Seth’s baseball from his first home run; Jason’s homemade fishing lure he made for Father’s Day one year; and my jar full of seashells from our last beach walk. I think about my father being lowered into that watery hole and I hate it. I want to scream. I want to turn the car around and beg them to wait for a sunny day. I feel my emotions taking over again when I remember the owl.

“Uncle Jack, what was wrong with that owl?”

Uncle Jack smiles as he says, “Nothing was wrong with it, that’s just the way barn owls sound.” My uncle Jack has volunteered at the local “Raptor Center” since he was in High School.

“I’ve never heard an owl that sounded like that.”

He laughs, “well, barn owls are a little more private than others. They don’t like the rain because their feathers are really soft and not very waterproof. However…” he drops his voice just above a whisper, “those soft feathers make them soundless when they soar through the night sky. My guess is that one is hiding out in that old shed in the woods behind the cemetery— waiting for the storm to pass.”

When we arrive home, I ask Jack over ham sandwiches, “how far away is the cemetery?”

“Well”, he says, “the way we just drove is about three miles, but if you go straight through the woods behind your house, you’ll run into it in just under a mile, so I would say it’s about .8 miles as the crow flies… or the barn owl” he says with a wink. I let that sink in, oddly comforted by the idea of it being so close. But as soon as I lay my head on the pillow, various images run through my mind: images of rain that never stops, of bodies floating in muddy water, and of owls starving because they cannot hunt.

***

It rains for the next three days. Then, finally, I wake up on a Saturday morning to birds chirping in celebration as the world takes a moment to dry out. I release a sigh of relief. When I get out of bed, mom is cooking breakfast for all of us. She’s been allowing us to eat in the living room since it feels so strange to sit around the table without dad. I can’t imagine a time when that will ever feel normal again, like so many other things that have changed forever. Yesterday I heard mom crying on the phone to uncle Jack. It was the first time she had made coffee for herself in over ten years. I guess since dad was always up before the rest of us, he made the coffee in the morning. I think about all the firsts I will have without him, and it makes me want to crawl back in the bed, but mom is smiling and my brothers are joking around with one another. I don’t want to be the one that ruins it today.

Later that afternoon, mom comes to my room to tell me that she’s going to take some dishes back to people before the rain starts back. “What rain?” I ask.

“According to Weatherbug, it’s supposed to start raining again this evening”, she says with a sympathetic face. I haven’t told her of the images that haunt me every night when it rains, so I sit glued to the window hoping that Weatherbug was wrong. But, before mom returns, I see the clouds forming in the distance. The sky gradually grows darker and the images come back into my mind: Seth’s baseball floating in a hole in the ground, Jason’s lure coming apart in a flood, and my seashells… The seashells dad and I collected not two months ago, sinking into the mud. When I feel like I might lose it again, the cry of the barn owl tears through the silence of the woods behind our house.

Before I even have time to think about what I’m doing, I grab the flashlight from my nightstand and take off running into the woods. I don’t know what my plan is. I don’t know what I expect to find. I just have to see the grave. I have to know that the images in my head aren’t real. I’m not sure how long I’ve been running and how much further I have to go, when the rain starts. I keep running through the mud and brambles. Lightning cracks so close to me, the hair on my arm stands up. On the end of the thunder, the barn owl cries out again. Uncle Jack said it was probably in the shed behind the cemetery. If I can reach the shed, I can take cover until the storm passes.

I run in the direction of the cries. I’m soaked through with rain and I can feel cuts on my arms and ankles, but I keep running. I run until the beam of my flashlight hits something that doesn’t look like trees. I stop for a moment and squint into the darkness, as I shine my light toward the structure, I hear the owl again, so close this time. This has to be the shed. The structure sits a couple of feet off the ground. I open the door and shine the flashlight inside. There are a couple of holes where the roof meets the walls, but all-in-all, it’s actually quite dry. When I shine my light on the beams in the far left corner, there is the barn owl. It looks at me with its soft face and feathers. I quickly move my beam away, thinking it might not appreciate the light in its eyes.

After digging around a bit, I find some canvas drop cloths which I use to make a little nest in the corner for myself and another to bundle around me for warmth. When I find myself in a reasonably comfortable position, my mind wanders to other things. I imagine my mom coming home and discovering I’m gone. I imagine her and my brothers, and perhaps uncle Jack looking for me right now— All of them worried and upset. It’s this image, the image of the worry on their faces that finally breaks me. I burst into sobs! All of the emotions that have been building up over the passing days erupt out of me. I cry for them, I cry for my dad, I cry for myself. I cry alone in the darkness until a presence tells me that I’m not quite alone. I turn on my flashlight, covering the lens with my hand to soften the beam, and there it is. No more than three feet away, the barn owl sits perched and staring at me. I didn’t even hear it move through the darkness. I concentrate on the owl as my sobbing slows, and my eyelids grow heavy. I whisper, “Thank you” into the darkness as I fall asleep, feeling safe with my companion watching over me.

It’s still dark when something wakes me. The rain has slowed to a steady drizzle. I turn on my flashlight, but the owl is nowhere to be found. I feel groggy and disoriented. Then, I hear my name and recognize my uncle’s voice calling to me. I yell back to him as I pry myself off the ground, open the door, and begin trudging toward the sound of his voice.

***

When we make it back to the house, it’s a little after 10:00 pm. My mom graciously allows me the opportunity to take a hot shower before I explain myself. I have been trying to figure out what to say to my family since I met up with uncle Jack in the woods. I’m still trying to work it out when I walk down the stairs to find all are gathered around the fire. I snuggle in next to my mom and her arms wrap around me; I think that’s what finally gives me the courage. Everything pours out of me: the rain, the images, the grave, the owl— all of it. When I finish, there’s a long silence. Then, Seth says, “I put dad’s aftershave on my blanket.” We all stare blankly, at him until Jack chuckles and says, “I bet I’ve called his voicemail 30 times in the past week. I just want to hear his voice.” Jason jumps in, “I can’t stop thinking about all the things he pickled.” We all laugh at that. “When dad got into pickling a few months ago, he was so excited to see how they would turn out. Now we’re stuck with a pantry full of pickled vegetables!” We laugh some more as we list all the things dad found out you could pickle. When our laughter dissipates, uncle Jack looks at me, “The thing is Leda-Lou, grief is weird. You are going to think and do so many strange things while you mourn your father. We all are, but we’ll also get through it together.”

***

That night returns to me often as I try to figure out how to live in a world without my dad in it. Sometimes when it rains I feel sad or haunted by images, but when that happens I picture the barn owl. I focus on its calm face and soft feathers. I imagine that from time to time it flies by my window to check on me. And on the rare occasions when I hear a cry in the night, I’ll whisper, “thank you” into the dark as I drift off soundly to sleep.