Like a Feather: My Life’s Lesson Right Now

31 Jul Like a Feather: My Life’s Lesson Right Now

The last “big” purchase I made on our joint credit card, before we went our separate ways, was a black, thigh-length, down-filled, winter coat. Although it was January, it was already on sale, and I bought it from fancy-schmancy Nordstrom for $150.

I needed a new coat. The one I had been wearing for a couple of years was from Costco. It was white and had gotten dingy. One of the pockets was ripped and every time I put my hand inside, I felt the inner-lining. The zipper was starting to go too.

I splurged on my new coat and I loved it. It was light-weight, but warm, and could even smoosh up into a small ball inside a built-in pouch for travelling… or clubbing, whichever.

All through the rest of last winter, in some of my darkest  moments of separating from my husband, this black coat was my cloak; my warm, full-coverage hiding place with deep pockets and a high collar. But there was one tiny issue. Every now and again, while driving or sitting in writing class and staring off into the ether, a tiny feather would float past my face.

Sometime in February, my 2-year-old son crawled on top of the counter and knocked off a glass ornament which shattered into a million pieces.  This ornament was filled with soft, speckled, brown feathers. It was symbolic to me. Every time I saw it, it reminded me of a phrase –– a saying which encapsulates how I want to live in this world: “Like a feather on the breath of God.”

So all throughout the cold, dark winter I kept seeing feathers float past me at random moments for one of these two reasons. And wouldn’t you know, as soon as summer came, and the coat was packed, the doors flung open, my daughter started a “feather collection” from ones she’d find in the yard or on walks. Now, whenever she finds a feather she puts it in a yellow bucket for safe keeping. My son finds feathers too. He holds them up to his big sister and says, “Brookie, I found another feather for your collection.”

This morning, as I sat on my front porch and drank my coffee, I talked with my children about love. I don’t remember how the conversation began, but I remember telling my daughter how very loved she was by everyone — me, her daddy, her grandparents, her brother.  And she asked, “And God?” And I said, yes, especially God. He loves you most of all. Then she turns to me, in her infinite 5-year-old wisdom, and says, “Why isn’t God a she?”

Touche, darling, touche.

So I said, “OF COURSE God’s a SHE!”  I told her God is a he and a she, but if she wanted to call God “she,” then I would too. Done. Henceforth in our house God shall now be a “she.”

Just then my son looks above my head and yells… “Look Mommy, it’s a feather coming down!” And sure enough, right behind me, there it came floating — as light as could be.

My daughter jumped up the steps behind me and caught it in mid-air. “A bird must have just flown by and dropped it!” So excited to have seen a feather falling from the sky.

So I said, “Yes, and she was beautiful, and must love us so much she wanted us to have one of her feathers.”

I was thinking that feather was from God. And that it was a sign, like all the other feathers over the past seven months. And suddenly that moment became one of those moments. Moments when you stop, and pay close attention to everything around you, take in every detail, memorize every sense, and then lock it away in your memory bank to unfurl on cold, winter days.

And so I looked at my babies, really looked at them. I studied them like I would a fine painting in the Louvre. Their lightened, summer hair falling everywhere; the way my daughter constantly sweeps her’s out of her face with her right hand; their smooth, soft, tanned cheek bones; a new, tiny freckle on my daughter’s nose and all 20 of those tiny dirt-filled fingernails. Those smiles, oh, those little teeth hurt me so deep. It all made me want to cry. And so I did. And I told my sweet little girl that I was so happy I was going to cry. Then she put her hands over my eyes and said in the most cheerful voice something I said to her on a rough night a few days back when she was feeling sad, “Let those eyes cry. Let the tears come, Mama. You’ll feel better when you do.” She is a special one, this girl.

I’m going through the toughest trial of my life thus far, and yet, I am being reminded all the time that it won’t last forever. The pain will rise and flow and fall and rise again on a burst of unseen air, and then it will disappear into the atmosphere again. It will move through time and space as unpredictable as the wind, and yet, if I can stay soft and light, I will not fall, and I will not break.

This is not at all what I want to do most of the time. What I want to do is go all Mama Bear, claws out, teeth bared. What I want to do is yell at God for how utterly ridiculous and unfair this life can be, and ask how HOW! could anyone behave this way?!?

But God knows all this already, and she is telling me what I must do in spite of what I want to do. She whispers to me softly, like breath, that this too shall pass. She’s telling me that the sooner I learn to trust and let go, to float and fall and rise again… the better off we’ll all be.