Today I’m encompassed with grief. I’m wrapped with the longing and ache from my mother’s absence. My mind usually drifts back to the moment she left, the final goodbye, and the second she left this life and entered her eternity.
Today is different. Maybe the fresh and glistening blanket of white snow has caused a shift in my perspective and visions. Maybe as the ground turns white with hope, my heart does too. There is this refreshing breath of light and joy that’s replaced the sadness. It confuses me at first, but since I know grief’s unpredictability, I embrace it. It feels good to replace the longing with blinding hope, even if it’s temporary.
My mind wonders. It delicately replaces the events and consequences of the day she died. Suddenly, I wonder if she never truly left us, but rather just flew away. Like an angel, like a bird, like anything with grace and wings to fly above it all. Above the pain, above the sadness, above every single thing.
Up, up, and away. Flying with the intent to find a spot to witness it all, unseen and exquisitely invisible. What if death is simply the moment we gain the ability of flight. The addition of wings. The gift of lift and rising, beyond our wildest dreams.
What if she didn’t leave, she simply flew? I find myself captivated by this hopeful thought, glancing carefully at the birds soaring around the trees and snow. Is she there? Could she be one of them? Presented as a simple bird, yet in reality something much more special and purposeful.
What if the flutter of the world’s most delicate wings are really the souls and intentions of all of those we think are gone? What if no one is ever completely gone, but rather transformed into different representations of beauty and life?
What if she didn’t just die, or leave, or become stolen from us, but rather rose from the pieces of her that we knew and recognized and flew above it all with wings and faith and freedom?
Maybe we’ve got it all wrong. Maybe they flew. Maybe it’s more priceless and breathtaking and magnificent than our earthly minds can comprehend.
What if she took her last breath and then flew away to get a bird’s-eye view of life, the kind only a mother can appreciate and desire?
What if she flew?
What if they all did?
