The Owl Listened

“I haven’t been here in a while.” I said softly, as I brushed thin layers of collected snow from your headstones. “It’s been….a long year.” I knelt for a moment, tracing the outlines of your names on the markers. Satisfied, I stood, made my way to the stone bench, and sat, exhausted. The weight of the day, the week, the year, settling itself onto my shoulders. I breathed in the night air, acknowledging the cold prickles that filled my lungs, and began. As I spoke, a young barn owl circled softly overhead. I watched it, and continued speaking.

“I didn’t know who else to talk to. It’s been tough. For everyone. It almost feels like there is no one to talk to, because everyone needs someone to talk to right now. I mean, where are the listeners? On top of everything else that this year has taken from us. It took the listeners.”

The barn owl’s circling slowed. It’s wings fanned out, and it gracefully settled into a perch on the opposite side of the stone bench. For a moment, I sat perfectly still, admiring the delicate tips of it’s wings, the wizened furrow of it’s brow. I softly continued speaking. The owl listened.

“I remember when I was little, and we would go to the commissary on the Air Force Base for slices of pizza and frozen yogurt. We would sit at a table, surrounded by people in uniform–people who were taking a break from some heroic task like flying a jet or mentoring a new recruit. We would point out the interesting items for sale in the nearby kiosks. I would talk. You would listen. And I never once wondered if you were judging me, or if I said the wrong thing.

At some point, as we grow up, we lose that, don’t we? That ability to speak with abandon. To pour out our ideas, our worries, secure in the knowledge that someone is just…listening. I certainly don’t do that now. I spend hours thinking of the words to say, how to say them, how not to be misconstrued. And in the end, I don’t say anything. At least nothing that matters.”

The wind picked up. The tip of my scarf blew free of my coat, and flapped softly against my shoulder. I smiled slightly, looking at the owl, softly looking at me. It’s amber eyes occasionally darting away, always ready for the hunt, but always returning to reflect my gaze. The owl listened.

“There’s a fear now that wasn’t here before. I can feel it coming off of people like steam. Almost as if we are all constantly at a simmer, slowly reducing down. Reducing down to what, I don’t know. Possibly to our deepest depths. Possibly into a gluey, inconsequential sludge. But that fear…it changes you. I’m glad you’re not here to be scared with the rest of us. Scared of things that used to be a celebration. Arenas full of joyous smiling souls, dancing to a deep, thumping bass. Intimate dinners where the tables are so close together that you can smell someone’s perfume. A baby’s first birthday…showers of kisses, cuddles, and sticky fingers scooping up blue frosting. A wedding. The fear has crept into all of it. And I don’t know if it will ever recede.

The people with a voice…they say that we can’t live in fear. That we have to just live. That we have to be strong, grab the bull by the horns, seize the day! But I am living. I am measuring my life by the quiet evenings I spend under a blanket, with a cat on my lap. With the delicious weight of my son as I lift him from his crib, and he snuggles his sleepy head of downy curls on my shoulder. With the racket of my neighbor, always fixing up the same truck in his garage, hoping that one day that truck will fix him. These little pieces of home are helping me to drape a thin veil over the fear. That is living right now. And I’m not ready to lift that veil and seize the day. Right now, the days seize me.”

A small balloon skittered across the path toward me. The kind with a stick that you poke into a bouquet of dyed carnations and baby’s breath. I picked it up and set it beside me on the bench. Happy Birthday with a smiley yellow face. I wondered about the person who bought this balloon. Did they buy it to bring to a birthday party, meant for celebrating the pure joy of someone else’s life? Or did they buy it to bring to a headstone like yours…mourning the loss of a life that has left a gaping hole so overwhelming that they can’t find a way to fill it? I have thoughts like these almost constantly. I wonder about the man on that talk show that airs when most of us are sleeping. He always seems so easy to laugh–exuberant, like a puppy. But what is it that makes him pull into his garage at night, and hunch over his steering wheel, weeping? Or…the boy who sells popcorn for Boy Scouts outside the gas station. Does he go home to a mother who fixes him cheesy noodles and snuggles into bed to read The Hobbit with him for the fifth time? Or does he go home to a dark house, fix himself a slice of toast, and fall asleep on the couch in his clothes? I glanced at the owl.

“Where is your mother?” I asked it. I turned back to your headstones and sighed. The owl listened.

“I guess I came here tonight hoping to feel you.” I confessed. “You knew me before I was…this. You knew me before I was defined by a career, a marriage, a child. You just knew me. Hell, I’m not even sure I know me anymore. And today I was…missing me. Like I miss you. I read the other day that fossils are created when bone has been buried so long that it turns to rock. There’s something tragic and beautiful about that. Did I bury myself so deeply, for so long, that the pure humanity of me has gone? Only to be replaced by cold, heavy stone?”

I shook my head. As if in agreement, the owl ruffled its feathers, gave a single flap of its wing, and re-settled on the bench. “You’re right.” I said to it. “That’s absurd.” I knew I needed to head back. But I hadn’t said what I wanted to say, yet. The owl listened.

“I just wanted you to know, wherever you are, that I am ok. I’m a lot of things–scared, tired…cold.” I chuckled. “But mostly, I’m ok. We are ok. I can do this. I can do this because I remember. I remember the before. I remember when I could pour my heart out over a cup of frozen yogurt. I remember when I sat elbow to elbow with strangers and laughed in a darkened theater. I remember leaping out of my seat with thousands of people as the ball went sailing out of the park. I remember porch swings. I remember.”

I stood to go. Before rounding the corner, I turned to take one last look at your headstones, the bench, and the barn owl. The owl sat, watching me go, with its glowing, orange eyes. In a gust of wind, it spread its wings, and was gone.