Cardinals at Christmas
“Precious in the sight of the Lord Is the death of His saints” - Psalm 116:15
There is a red cardinal that visits my house every winter.
I look forward to seeing it every year. In the dreary winter months, everything here is brown. We don’t really get much snow here on the coast of North Carolina. Once the trees lose their leaves in the fall, everything here is murky brown until springtime. This beautiful red cardinal is a bright spot of color against all that brown. I can’t say for sure if it’s the same red cardinal year after year, but I like to think that it is. This one tree in our back yard seems to be his favorite spot. He will perch and sing in the tree, sit the fence, and hop around my yard. I like to drink my coffee and watch him in the morning.
About 2 years ago, my youngest son, Jake, became obsessed with birds. I blame Apologia’s Zoology curriculum for that. He became a bird watcher, running to the window every morning with a pair of binoculars to see what bird he could find every morning. Once he spotted one, he’d document it in a homemade field guide that he made himself. He then started painting birds. For a 3rd grader, his bird paintings looked really good! Proud mom moment. I posted it on my Facebook account, and my phone rang almost instantly.
Cardinals, specifically red cardinals, were my grandmother’s favorite bird. As a born and raised Hoosier, it was our state bird as well. We’d see them all over Indiana growing up. Riding in her car, she’d point them out every time we saw one around town. It was almost a contest to see who could spot the most of them.
My grandmother called the instant she saw his painting online, but I didn’t get the phone in time. She left a voicemail gushing about Jake’s cardinal painting and how it was her favorite bird. I called her back and she talked to him for a half hour about his painting and birds.
In July of 2020, I lost my grandmother. Being more of a parent than a grandparent to me, the loss was monumental. She helped raise me for years until I was a teenager. We called each other every week until her death, even when I lived overseas in Japan. She was more than a grandmother, she was a parent, a confidant, and a friend.
Saved on my phone to this day is the voicemail she left about the cardinal painting. I’ve only listened to it once since I lost her.
They say there are multiple stages of grief; denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
That was never the case for me. It was shock for about 1 solid hour when I heard the news, and then I flew into action. My husband grabbed my suitcase and we piled into the car and drove 5 states away to help my mother with the funeral arrangements. After the funeral, after the “action”, it was suppressed sorrow. If I’m being honest with myself, I haven’t really dealt with her death yet. I’ve done a really good job of suppressing it; bottling it up, pushing it down, almost forgetting it’s real. Then I hear a song on the radio, see something funny on tv, or spot a cardinal in my back yard. I reach for my phone instinctively to call her, and then it hits me again.
This is a pic of my grandma and I in 1988, my favorite photo of us together.
I’m really good at busy. I have 2 online businesses; I’m a business coach and certified SEO tech, and I’m also a Youtuber/influencer with a huge homeschooling audience. ‘Busy; is something I’m good at. However, the last 2 months have been painfully (in every sense of the word) slowed down for me. I have an incurable neurological disease that makes me very sick and wreaks my body with pain. I can no longer drive a car, work outside my home, or be alone for long periods of time unsupervised. I rely on my family, and they pull me through.
Most of the time, no one would ever know that I’m suffering from this disease, but the last 6 weeks or so, it flared up. I’ve been on the couch and in bed more days than not, making it a long, slow two months for me. I’ve had more than enough time to sit, be in the quiet, and think. I can’t do “busy” when I’m like this. That’s when the wave hits. The wave of grief that I’ve shoved down for the last 18 months.
Last Christmas was my first Christmas without her. Once I got married, spending Christmas at home became harder and harder when we lived so many states (and sometimes, countries) away. However, I always called and Facetimed her. Last Christmas, I couldn’t do that. But, boy, did I stay busy. I made sure I didn’t have a moment to sit down and think, because I wasn’t sure if I could handle it.
Now that the Lord is making me deal with this grief, this wound feels as fresh as ever. It feels like the first Christmas without her because I’m acknowledging it. Prayerfully, I’m going to get through this Christmas, too. Then maybe I can get through singing Amazing Grace in our church hymnal (her favorite song) without a shaky voice once more. I could hear her calling me silly right now if she knew I was crying while typing this. But, it’s part of healing, and remembering.
I’ve thought about her a lot lately with Christmas coming up. As a child, I used to help her decorate her house every year for Christmas. She had so many vintage pieces that I didn’t appreciate in my young age. Looking back, she had a treasure trove of 50’s nostalgia Christmas decorations. It was like a time capsule. Every year, we’d have to put “icicles”, what she called silver tinsel, on her tree. My grandpa and mother both disliked it, but I really enjoyed it as a kid. It was a mess to clean up after Christmas, but we had a ball putting it up on the tree every year. Decorating the tree was an all-day event and I looked forward to it every single year with her. As I got out my tree with my kids this week, I thought of her and almost purchased tinsel….keyword “almost”.
I’m not sure how I’ll feel when I see our cardinal again this year, but I hope I smile more than cry. One step at a time, until I see her again in glory.
