Helen's in Red

If you are looking for them, things that normally would go unnoticed actually occur quite often.

I always smile when I hear stories about people who look for random pennies and playing cards on the ground. In a movie I watched not long ago, a main character carried a camera and documented single shoes.

For me it is cardinals.

It is hard not to allow your eye to be drawn to a bright red flash of a bird. There is one that lives at work and one in our backyard, so I see them quite often.

My Grandma LOVED cardinals. LOVED them. I couldn’t even begin to tell you why them over any other bird. There was a family that lived in her back yard too. I think she named them. That sort of thing suited her.

Now, whenever I see one, I say “Hi Grandma,” out loud. Most people think I’m nuts, but I do truly believe that if there is such a thing as reincarnation, Gram chose to come back as a cardinal. A male one with the bright feathers, since what is the point of having the title of cardinal if you’ve got the boring brown female feathers? (Given this, cardinals are all transgender birds with the body of a male, but the soul of a female).

In the last two weeks we have had the passing of Grandparents Day (which I totally ignored since Gracie’s grandparents are 600 miles away and am fairly sure that they are not even away of the Hallmark holiday) and the anniversary of my Grandma’s death. She has been gone for 13 years and I still think of her all the time.

Today, the work cardinal bounced around the patio squawking loudly. In the course of her travels through the trees, over chairs, under umbrellas, she came to visit. This fiery little bird came right up to me, stood on my table and look at me. So I gave her a piece of rosemary ciabatta bread. She smiled at me (yes, I swear the bird smiled) and flew away with the treat.

Bye Gram. Thanks for the visit.