No, my day is a filled with joy when I see a sparrow, a chickadee, a goldfinch, a bluebird, a robin, a cardinal, or a blue jay.
I am not a gifted birdwatcher, and often I have no idea what that little fellow outside my window might be. I just know that seeing him gives me strength for the day. He is flitting about here and there, and he may give me a curious look with a tilted head before he goes on his way. If I'm lucky he will eat some seed from my feeder, and take a drink or splash around in my birdbath. I tip my hat to him, and hope that he will come back.
My cat Jack, a tough tabby, likes to hunt them, and he is sometimes successful. I remind myself that he is following his own nature as much as the bird is following his, and as much as I am following mine. I love that stringy cat as well, but I take a certain satisfaction in seeing the little birds dive-bomb him when he struts across the yard.
It isn't just that those humble birds are an expression of the beauty of Nature, or that they give me the feeling my daughter used to call the "warm fuzzies". No, I share with my mother a love for these feathery friends because they stand for someone, they are someone. We both name every backyard bird, of whatever species or gender, "Loisi".
My Uncle Alois, one of my mother's older brothers, and sharing a name with my grandfather, was an incredible man. He had an insight so sharp that it could cut through steel. He could, when the mood hit the right way, find the good in anything and everything. He could uncover something funny in all aspects of life, even the most horrific.
He saw life as a beautiful tapestry, and when we went on our long walks together, he would suddenly stop and point. "There, over there! How wonderful!" I would look around expecting something deeply dramatic, yet his finger was directed at a red squirrel, or a tree with a certain bend to it, or a cloud over a hilltop.
I am still filled with the many phrases he raised me on.
"Above all else, do good."
"The best love is the love of your neighbor."
"They already have their reward."
"Even if they don't care about you, you can still care about them."
"Never let your politics get in the way of what is right."
"A good man may not have long to live, but he can still live with passion."
"The Nazis said the work makes you free. The phrase is totally right, though they said it for all the wrong reasons."
"Give of yourself, and you will need nothing else."
"Love is not receiving. Love is giving. "
"One day, we will both be under the ground. Until then, wine, women, and song!"
"A pretty face or a fine rump hold nothing to a woman with a loving heart."
The list goes on. . .
May family nickname was Schandi. "The love, Schandi, the love. Nothing else matters! Do you understand, Schandi?"
I simply can't express in writing the tone with which he said these things. The last time I ever saw him, as we said our goodbyes, he shook my hand firmly, smiled with that impish grin, and said, "Perhaps one we day we will meet again as refugees." That was his way.
I once brought the woman I thought was the love of my life to meet my Austrian family. He showed her the greatest respect, but immediately took me aside in private. "You do know," he said, "that she is going to break your heart?" I shrugged it off, but he was completely right. He was able to see things that way.
He never told me, and I never asked him, but I sensed there was a sadness in him. I suspected his heart had once been broken. He never married, though he was one of the most charming people you could ever meet. He sometimes drank a bit too much, and I sadly took after him in this regard.
He was a big man, and he smoked big Peterson pipes, which he cleaned religiously at the kitchen table every Saturday morning. Whenever I smoke my own pipe now, I think of him, with both joy and sadness. I now clean my pipes exactly as he did. The ritual still lives.
I haven't forgotten about the birds. For all the times he could be sad, angry, or blustery, what I saw as his way of coping with his inner demons, his gentle kindness was his most wonderful trait. If he saw anyone else who was sad, angry, or blustery, he would start tweeting like a bird. If it had no effect, he would smile, and tweet like a bird again.
I was cranky one day as I stood by the open window at my grandmother's apartment in Graz. He walked up to me, and did his usual bird impression. I was a depressed teenager, and I looked the other way. He whistled and chirped once more, and suddenly a sparrow flew in to sit on his arm.
"See, Schandi? It's never so bad. God gives you beauty."
And I suddenly started crying. Sobbing, actually. Not a word was said, but he put his huge, bear-like hand on my shoulder. I knew he loved me, and I knew I would always love him.
My mother names every backyard bird after him, and I also name every backyard bird after him. Whenever either of us sees a most humble bird, we don't just say that it reminds us of him.
It is him.
Written in 2/2017
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