Flying Home

As I lay here drifting in and out of consciousness no longer able to discern reality from dream, I fight hard to focus on anything that may have some semblance of being real. The only thing I can somehow sense as a part of the living world I will soon depart is the steady gaze of a snowy white night owl. Occasionally I can even hear the haunting sounds of his voice seeming to bellow out announcements or perhaps updates of how close I am to entering an unknown world. Each day I struggle to fixate on that owl scarcely hearing what people around me may be saying because I know that owl keeps me connected to reality somehow. I know it’s real. I know it is somehow connected to me.

I am Muscogee Creek and the relationship my tribe has with nature is the symmetry of a beautiful co-existence. My name is Martha Wolf. Perhaps I should be relieved that the animal holding my attention is simply an owl, even though my name links me to wolves. I have always loved wolves. I love the way they look, the way they move, just everything about them. Most of my life, however, I have feared owls. I found them to have an ominous and eerie look about them. I suppose it may have been a premonition that a snowy white night owl would come as my time arrived to exit this plane of existence.

I no longer know how many days that owl has been perched in that old oak in my backyard. I don’t know how many nights I have stared at the owl trying to hang on to the life of this world…trying to hold on to memories and cling to the only thing that I know to be real. I’m struggling now, I can feel my mind pulling away from reality. I can feel my mind surrender to a peaceful, dreamlike state that somehow, though peaceful I cannot relax and succumb to the moment. I still have that fight to live in me. I still want to meet the challenge to struggle through the haziness to fixate on my owl again…to be among the living. I can’t say anything, I have tried but when I try to voice what I am feeling I find that I can’t open my mouth. I hear them talking sometimes and I even comprehend what they are saying. I sometimes feel sad as a lone tear will escape from my eye, the only evidence to them that I somehow understand what they are saying.

I feel myself falling again, soon I will be able to view that creature I have feared my whole life, yet now long to see its existence. I’m falling and falling and the owl is coming into my focus as I feel as I am being gently pulled into some weird type tunnel. I see the owl coming back in view and realize that I am once again touching reality. I want to live but I am exhausted and fear I won’t have the strength to fight my way back once more so this is my final farewell to this world trying desperately to burn the memory of my loved ones faces in my mind.

The owl is no longer perched on the tree but flying towards me. I sigh my last sigh as my spirit follows this great white night owl. It’s oh so peaceful as we soar among the heavenlies finally slowing down the pace in a sea of the most beautiful azure blue colored environment as we travel the vast unknown but somehow deep in my spirit, I know everything is going to be fine.