Common Birds XI - Great Blue Heron

Any sufficiently long life is full of absences. Often, they are insufficiently long lives. Mine is not so long, but long enough to have such gaping emptinesses. However, I did not expect to find even a small emptiness in my walks between work. 

The great blue heron I used to see almost everyday for months has been missing since March 16, almost two weeks. I’m not sure what to make of this. He could have just left, but I would have expected that during the bitter cold of January. Most herons migrate south. Now, when even I can see the signs of spring, it would be the time to stay. He (she?) may be nesting somewhere in the thicket. It’s about the right time for that, but I’d still expect to see him hunting. I try not to dwell too much on the fact that the last day I saw him was the same day I saw a red shouldered hawk where the heron normally fishes. All the same, sometimes I look for his body.

I wanted the heron to be a constant companion for these writings, just as he was my constant companion for the winter months. In terrible weather, he and I stood alone, together. When I drive into work and when I walk past the stream, I still get my hopes up that I might see him, but he is gone. 

Should I really feel grief for this heron? We did have some sort of a relationship. Over time, he was less skittish around me. He stopped fleeing when I stopped to admire him. I have a few pictures. He was (is?) my heron coworker who comes and just fishes all day and makes me wonder if he’s the one doing life right. 

It doesn’t help that the situation reminds me of our first pregnancy. So many things do. At nine weeks, in a silent ultrasound room, we found out that the pregnancy wasn’t growing a human person, only random, life-threatening cells. But for nine weeks they were my child, and I loved my child, and still love them. The love remains, but they are gone and all our hopes for them are gone. 

I’ve been rewatching Howl’s Moving Castle, a movie by Hayao Miyazaki, in bits and pieces. The main character, Sophie, is suddenly cursed and transformed into an old woman. The first time watching, I saw myself in Howl, the wizard whose magic is pulled over and over into the war. Now I know what it feels like to suddenly be made old.

Sophie strikes me with unbelievable resilience. She’s turned into an old woman, and immediately packs some bread and cheese and looks for Howl, trying to break the curse. But incredible resilience might just be how grief looks when life cannot stop. We have to keep going, especially for grief so secret and ill defined as pregnancy loss. Less than a week after Amelia’s surgery to remove the mass, we moved from the North Country to our new home in Massachusetts. I started a new job and had to learn and meet and make first impressions, newly ancient and hazy with grief. And people can’t see those changes. I would sit at my desk and hear people older than me in the hallway being friends and talk about going out. I couldn’t imagine relating to them.

The heron’s absence reminds me of my other absences too. But it is right to grieve for the heron for its own sake. At the pond around noon, I stand under the spreading branches, under the open sky. I hear the scuffling of two pairs of nuthatch feet on the bark above me, hear their soft calls between mates, and watch them round their trees. I spook two wood ducks, spring once more visible in new presences. The sun is warm, my heart heavy absences. Yet with time and grace, absences let us be filled. There will be new life. Spring reminds us year after year. Amelia and I are expecting a healthy baby boy in just a few months now. There will be new life. The day echoes with the promise of my God: resurrection. Though there is death and loss, there will be new life.