Rocky

Earlier in the week I saw a wounded blackbird in the back garden. He had clearly been attacked by something, and had a hurt wing and a featherless wounded patch on his head. He wouldn't let me go near him for several days, and I took to leaving seeds and bits of bread in the bushes, hoping he would eat them before the squirrels did.

After 4 days I named him Rocky because he was clearly a fighter. Even though I kept leaving him food by the bushes where he tried to hide, I could tell by his crowing that he was getting weaker. Yesterday my friend David and his dad John were over working on the shed and David was able to catch him so we could put him in a towel-lined basket to rest. He was really weak and couldn't hop any more, so I spoon-fed him water and bread bits and left him to rest. An hour or so later he had hopped out of the basket, left a big poo on the patio and was back to the bushes. He was clearly in pain when we had him in the basket, and I wanted him to either go quickly or be 100% okay.

This morning I looked out the bathroom window over the back garden and saw more black feathers. I figured he must've been attacked again, and shortly thereafter I saw a rather large cat emerge from the bushes. I'd seen enough and I had closure. Poor Rocky went quickly and his life gave life to others, blah, blah blah…

But actually, this afternoon I was in the house and I suddenly heard “click, click, click” sounds in the bonus room. The slider is open because John is back in the garden working on the shed today, so I got up to check out the noise only to find Rocky hopping around! My silly little crow is still alive! He hopped off to the bushes again, but this time he let me get next to him with some almond slivers and a little tub of water and he didn’t even try to peck me when I poured a bit of water over and into his beak. I don’t know how long he’ll manage to keep alive, but for now it looks like I have a pet crow named Rocky who’s quite the little fighter. As my friend Pete would say, Eye of the Tiger, baby. Eye of the Tiger.

Death

Over the past several weeks I've felt surrounded by death. It started with a woman named Jo Norton, who out of the blue had a brain aneurysm and bleeding that couldn't be stopped. After a tense several days, she seemed to be recovering, then suddenly had another and was gone only a few days later. She left a husband and three children. She also left an incredible legacy (which you can read about here on her friend's blog) of caring for poor, hurting and marginalized people in her community.

I never met Jo, but before any of this happened I already knew of her, and was looking forward to meeting this woman that was so clearly loved and respected by the 24-7 Community with which I'm connected here in England. Her death was sudden, and I have watched with sadness the sense of loss the empty space left in the hearts and lives of those around me that knew her.

Last Saturday evening my Uncle Jim lost his fight with cancer. He put up a good fight, and in the end was surrounded by those he loved most. Losing him has been hard, not just because I loved my uncle and the larger-than-life person he was, but because he was not a man of faith, and I don't know that I'll see him on the other side. I pray that I will, and the reality is that in the end only God really knows who will really be with Him. It's also been hard to be 5,000 miles away from my family and unable to be there to celebrate Uncle Jim's life and share love and support with my aunt and cousins.

Death leaves scars. Even seven years on, it doesn't take much to remind me of the most significant loss I've faced in my life so far. The short and sudden illness and death of Addam, the son of one of my closest friends, was the most devastating thing I've experienced in my life. He was six in early June when he was found to have a brain tumor, turned seven in mid-July and died at the end of August. Thinking about him again prompted me to read some of my old posts. Looking over the words I wrote in last six or seven years I was moved by revisiting some of these thoughts, and found them comforting. I think this one stuck out to me the most. It's one I wrote three years and seven months after we lost Addam.

In conclusion, I don't know what to make of this little season of grieving I find myself in, but I pray God will continue to comfort me and my friends, along with the many others whose lives were touched by Jo Norton and Uncle Jim.