Birds

I have been very blessed to have had two amazing Grandmothers in my life.

My Grandma on my Dad's side was one of the most generous people that I have ever met. Her and my Grandpa lived in Arizona while I was growing up. Every summer we would travel to see them. We loved going on those trips and spending that time with them. I was her first Grand baby and she always made me feel so special. She died when I was 13. When I graduated from college my Grandpa took me on a trip to Hawaii. He told me all about all of the trips that him and my Grandma had taken there. He told me tons of other stories about her as well; about how they met, about their life together, about her love for her children and grandchildren. It was a great experience and one that I will always cherish.

My Grandparents on my Mom's side lived in Wisconsin about 45 minutes from where I grew up. I have so many great memories of going to visit them. I remember going to stay with them for a week during the summer as a kid. My Grandpa would let me sit on his lap at he drove the tractor around the field. I would pick strawberries with Grandma and always eat way more than made it into the bowl. For lunch we would have strawberry jam and cheddar cheese sandwiches. I will never forget the one summer night that Grandma sat up with me all night holding cool wet wash clothes on my very swollen eyes after I had spent the entire day snuggling the barn kittens against my face, this was before we realized that I was allergic to both cats and hay. Grandma made the very best mashed potatoes, my Mom always said that she was making them the exact same way but they were never the same.

My Grandma and Grandpa loved birds. Outside their large dining room window they had probably 6 bird feeders. I remember sitting there with them watching the birds come to eat. Out their front window they had a number more. I remember in their later years Grandpa getting really frustrated at the squirrels that would climb the bird feeders and eat the bird food. Grandpas solution was to put a bit of electric fencing around feeders. I think that at the time we all thought it was pretty funny. My Grandpa died my sophomore year in college and my Grandma died the year I graduated from college.

My sweet little Madie is named after my Mom's mom. Grandma Heimann. Her name was Louise. My Madie's name is Madelyn Louise. When Madie was a baby she would always look off into this one corner of our living room and smile. It didn't matter where in the room she was she would gravitate toward that corner. It wasn't long before I started telling Ben that I felt like she could see something or rather someone in that corner. I began to get an overwhelming feeling that my Grandmas were around me. It was so strong I could almost hear them laughing. On some of the nights that I felt like I couldn't make it through another sleepless night I could feel them near me, wrapping me in their love and helping me through those long hard nights.

Madie loves to be outside, I swear she would sleep out there if I would let her. From the minute she wakes up to the minute that she goes to sleep she is sneaking outside. She will spend hours out their playing by herself. Lately I have found her sitting on her little bench just looking around.  So it didn't seem all that strange to me when she started talking about birds. Our yard is completely fenced in so a bird is pretty much the only thing that can make it into our yard. She talks about the birds constantly, she keeps asking her Dad and I if we can catch one of the birds so that she can pet it. One day I saw her at the back fence, I wondered out there to see what she was doing. She told me that she had drawn a picture for the birds and got them a cookie. She had neatly wrapped a chocolate chip cookie that she had sneaked from then kitchen in the paper and had placed it between the slats on the fence. She told me that she was just waiting for the birds to come get it. I explained to her that cookies aren't really good for birds and that I would get her some bread to feed the birds. She was ecstatic. A couple days later she was watching cartoons and on Agent Oso they were talking about making bird feeders by taking a pine cone, covering it with peanut butter and sprinkling it with birdseed. The kids asked if we could make some and being the boring -I-don't-want-to-clean-up-that-mess- mom that I am told them that we could just buy a regular bird feeder instead. So the next time that we went to Lowes I picked up a simple bird feeder and a bag of birdseed. We filled it and hung it up outside our kitchen window. I hung it high enough that she can see it from her angle within the house and she can see it from where ever she is outside.

Tonight as I was working in the kitchen I watched her running around outside. Every now and then I would see her stop and watch a bird that was pecking at some of the birdseed I let her sprinkle on our lawn - and she would smile - the biggest, purest, happy smile. And then it hit me. Madie's love for birds and her Great Grandma Louise's love for birds and all of a sudden it no longer felt like this childish love for these little creatures but a bridge between Heaven and Earth. I started thinking about how I am sure that my Grandmothers held my sweet babies before they came to this Earth. How they loved on them. I thought about how Madie probably watched the birds with Grandma Heimann the same as I did when I was a little girl. I wondered if that might be something that Grandma told Madie before she left her premortal life - that every time she saw a bird it was like Grandma saying "I am here, I am watching over you and I love you my little Madie Lou". I wonder if Madie remembers. I wonder if this is why those birds bring her so much peace and happiness. I wonder if she can feel Grandma through them. I wonder...

I got a bit emotional. I still am.

Some may say that this is just a coincidence but I know better and I will never look at a bird the same.