Gramps the Owl

My Grandfather was an owl. How he became the owl, I don’t quite know. I would imagine it was because he studied late into the night. As a young girl, I knew him as Gramps and by the symbol of the owl. When my mother was born, the doctor proclaimed her the owlet. She arrived in the late hours of night and being the owl’s offspring, it was a natural name to give her.

Owls run in the family.

Throughout the family home were owls. Owls of all sorts. Antique owl carvings of wood and bone. Owl decorations with big eyes from the 1970’s hung from the walls. Little owl figurines perched on on bookshelves shelves. A large outdoor owl stood guard on the red brick steps outside the front door. An owl sculpture was perched in a tree. Owls were everywhere.

Gramps was a short man who wore tennis polos and white New Balance tennis shoes. He played tennis and drove a Jeep Cherokee. He went to football games and smoked a pipe. He grew up poor in New York during the depression. He had a harsh Spanish father who fought in France and a gentle German mother who had been married once before. He defied his father’s wishes and followed his calling. He went to Stanford and studied medicine. He married a beautiful wife from an affluent family. He built his own good, and respectable family. He provided for a large and covetous household. He belonged to the country club. He was a doctor. They were a respectable suburban family who voted for Nixon, Reagan and Bush. And if someone or something was remotely ‘different’, that person or thing would be scrutinised and criticised. In these moments of public humiliation, Gramps never said a word, he didn’t need to. He only raised an eyebrow and watched with piercing blue eyes. The ever watching, unblinking eyes of the owl.

Throughout my life, I have come understand animals as beings of wisdom and sources of medicine. They are our guides, our teachers and our totems. My Grandfather was the owl and the owl was his totem. I see him as the Great Horned Owl. A regal animal, with large ears and piercing eyes. The owl is a powerful bird with many meanings. It carries the lessons of deception and flying through worlds. The owl sees what others cannot, listening, observing and holding wisdom in their great talons. In his living form, I never saw Gramps as a particularly wise man. But in his death and through the spirit of the owl, I know him as a source of wisdom and comfort.

My mother’s family did not lean towards the spiritual, mystical or magical. Woo woo was not in their wheel house, and if it was in someone else’s, they made a point to point it out. If they read what I’m writing now, I’d be in for a roasting. I’ve no doubt I’d be the centre of attention while they mocked and condemned me for this so called departure from reality and hippie nonsense - because, my take on Gramps and the owl, does in fact cross over into the world beyond ours. I can see it now. The whole family, in the living room, Gramps sitting in his big leather chair in the corner of the study eyeing it all. The men and all the boys laughing at me and talking over each other, while the women sat silent with a disapproving and demeaning look. This never happened to me directly, but I saw it happen to my Mother. There she was, the rebel. The one with the weird, artistic husband and blue eyed baby girl, sitting with her conservative family, bearing the brunt of their judgment.

For better or for worse, I spent only small amounts of time with her side of the family. Never long enough that I changed who I was to meet the shape of what they expected and accepted. But just enough time that I learned life lessons and learned to cuss. The last time I saw Gramps was 19 years ago.

I dearly loved my Grandfather. I loved the time I spent with him. I loved going to Peet’s Coffee with Gramps and eating chocolate covered blueberries. I loved sitting in the study while he smoked a pipe and early Easter Sunday mornings at the family home. I loved listening to him read ‘The Night Before Christmas’. Gramps wasn’t exactly warm and cozy with me. He didn’t quite know what to do with a granddaughter, seeing that boys made up the family majority. Yet, I knew, absolutely, and definitively that he loved me. And I revered him.

He died almost four years ago. He died alone. He died in what I imagine was a great deal of pain, decay and the deepest, most fowl kind of bitterness one could hold onto. He was not a particularly kind man. Certainly not at the end, and not so much the middle or the beginning. Yet, he did the best he could. And in the ways he knew how, he was a good man. There is little to nothing of sentiment he left behind. There was no funeral, no memorial, no ceremony to commemorate his life and mark his death. You see, when he died, I hadn’t seen him for years. I can’t remember the last time I saw him, spoke with him, or smelled his pipe tobacco curling through the air. In someways, he died when he disowned us. When we knew we would never see him again, in his lifetime, or ours, that’s when we lost him. So when he actually did really and truly die years later, it was like he died twice. And yet, he didn’t die at all. Gramps’ departure was unceremonious, bizarre and so broken. It was almost like he vanished.

When I went to his house to prepare it for sale, not one of those owls that had lived in that house all those remained. All that was left was chipped China, boxes of moth eaten blankets and two horrid couches. What he left behind was hauled into a container and dumped. The shining legacy he had worked so hard to create is currently disintegrating into landfill. Gramps is decomposing just like his belongings crammed and smashed into the dirt. His human presence is gone. Yet, through the medicine and mystery of animals, his spirit lives through the owl. After all, my Grandfather was the owl.

Whenever the owl appeared in my path I would despise its existence, in whatever form it presented itself. Whether it was one of those wide eyed 70’s owl statues at a vintage shop, or owls printed on flannel pajamas, I saw them only as a reminder of pain and suffering - symbols of the chaos and trauma my Grandfather had created. I hated seeing him everywhere in these birds. I would scoff, and roll my eyes. With each owl sighting, my heart would harden around the hurt. I hoped, that by toughening up, I wouldn’t feel that cutting pain in the softest parts of my heart. An insatiable mass of grief grew from the place of his death. I protected this grief with a thick layer of refusal and resentment. It has taken years, but I have begun to let my self lose from the hate I bound us both to. By scorning the owl, I was rejecting him. I was disrespecting his attempt to show up and seek me out. I was denying him forgiveness and denying the owl the medicine it wanted to bring. Wherever I would go, the owl would find me.

At a certain point, I chose to forgive and undo the heavy armour I guarded my heart with. Now, I welcome and await the arrival of Gramps as the owl. Most nights, an owl hoots outside my window. I take comfort in its gentle song and my Grandfather’s wise presence. Gramps visits when and where he is needed - he visited my mother and me night of his son’s death. Gramps was there. And remains so. He travels by flight. He watches with those round owl eyes. He comforts me when all the pieces are missing. And reminds me with soft hoots that while I may not see him in the dark, he stands watch with those round owl eyes.

I said that owls run in the family - and they do. The full moon face of a white barn owl has found its way to me. My own owl. It visits at night. It flies into my dreams, and lightly perches on my shoulder. This gentle being sees through the shadows and flies between the worlds. It brings back wisdom and teaches me to be unafraid to traverse the darkness. It brings light to the shadows. I have come to understand this owl - the white barn owl with wings of gold. I feel it both as a gift from the animals and a gift from Gramps. This is his way of keeping staying close and keeping me safe. The moon owl is his way of offering me the wisdom and guidance he himself was never able to impart. My Grandfather is the owl, and his spirit lives in that great feathered being.