It was December 27th, 1993 around 10:30AM as our entire family gathered around Mom's bedside in her sunny San Diego home. I was holding Mom's left hand with my right hand as we all watched her take her last gasps of air until she finally took one long breath and then peace permeated the entire room. She was a merely 50 years young Mom, and I was a 27 years young daughter. Mom had been struggling with Cancer for the past five years and she had finally decided it was time to go back Home.
We had a memorial service at our local Catholic church followed by a traditional Irish wake with many many family and friends. A few days later I was sitting at the window seat of my plane preparing to take off and return to Michigan. There was a long stretch of 8 to 10 silver birds lined up for take off at the San Diego Airport that morning. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my right eye there appeared a rather LARGE BLACK BIRD! He looked like a Crow and I noticed that he was hovering and trying to get my attention, it seemed. He kept turning his head and flapped his wings to stay within view of my window! "That's odd", I thought to myself. Then I started to think, here I am on a NOISY departure strip of an airport getting ready to take off with all these other noisy planes revving their engines and a BIRD decides to reveal himself to me! My left brain tried to justify and rationalize it all. It simply could not be done! Birds just don't fly up to airplane windows and HANG OUT! Birds don't like LOUD sounds!…Finally we were airborne, and I realized it was my Mom saying "I love you, I am still with you, and I am ok." I cried into my kleenex tears of both sadness and comfort with a deep knowing that I would never be alone.
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