An Owl's Wisdom Guides My Life

No one in my family had time for me, and if they did bother to pay any attention to me, they were confused and befuddled by me. I wasn’t like the rest of them. They were simple old-time country farmers with minimal education and no understanding of why any of their kind would seek more out of life than what I could see as only life-draining labor with little reward. As young as 6 years old, I had a fire burning within me; a yearning to read, learn, travel, and write. I sure as Hell don’t know where it came from, but it was there from as far back as I could remember, and it could not be extinguished.

“Ain’t nothin’ gonna come out of your dreamin' ”, my Dad used to say to me. “Get that head out of the clouds and pay attention to your chores.”

Short and scrawny for my age, I wasn’t much good for the heavy work of farming. My 7 older brothers and sisters were assigned to the plowing, hay baling, tractor driving, fence building/repairing, and animal herding chores. That left me to gather eggs from the hens, feed the chickens, and milk the cows with my mom, who you would think would have been thrilled to spend time with her youngest child (often referred to as “the accident”), but that wasn’t how it was in the years after the Great Depression and World War II. She was worn out from too much childbearing, hard farm labor, worrying and stress over money, unpredictable, harsh weather destroying the crops, and the hardest blow of all - the loss of a son in the War.

Her weary, worn-down life had left me a quiet, lonely child with nothing in common with siblings 10- 25 years older than me. Most had moved on with lives and families of their own. They came to help when they could, but the bulk of the work fell to Dad, Mom, an aging farmhand, and the 3 of my siblings who remained at the farm.

The bus came every day to take me to school in the nearby town. I soaked up as much knowledge as I could and enjoyed every minute I spent in the classes. My teachers praised and encouraged my writing from the early elementary grades straight through high school. The A’s I received on my English essays were scorned as useless by my family. “Ain’t no A’s on writin’ stories gonna feed your belly,” Dad was fond of saying.

I was as quiet in school as I was at home. It was just my nature, so I made few friends. It was a long way out to the farm anyway. No one was interested enough in me to coax their parents into a 2-hour round trip.

With this as the backdrop of my life, at the age of 9, I found refuge in the barn loft. After supper, not always, maybe only one or two nights a week, when everyone in the house figured I was in my bedroom doing homework, I would sneak out to the barn, climb the rickety old ladder to the hayloft, settle into the prickly, but comforting hay and dream about my future. Contemplate. Wonder. And write. I used a flashlight to see, hoping no one in the house would notice a light coming from the top of the barn. Even at 9 years old, I would write little stories and tuck them away in a far corner under some old blankets stored up there.

One night, I was particularly pensive for a 9-year old, and wondered out loud, “How am I going to reach these goals I have set for myself? How am I going to be good enough to get into college? If I am good enough, how am I going to afford college? I can’t spend the rest of my life on this farm. I just can’t. Even if I get to college, will I ever be good enough to be a real writer?

As despondency settled over me, I heard a weird sound like a muffled screech. I followed the sound to a far corner of the hayloft, where I saw a little owl. It was smaller than any owls I had ever seen. Maybe about a foot tall. Its head was comprised of fluffy white plumage with a face settled into a heart shape outlined in brown. I saw it open its mouth and the same quiet screech came out.

Then I heard – was it in my mind? Did I see its mouth move? I don’t know. I heard the words - quiet, low, but clear.

“You were born to be special. Believe in yourself when no one else will. You are enough.”

I blinked in astonishment and watched as the little owl flew down from the loft to where? The barn door was closed. None of the barn windows, what few of them there were, were open, but the owl was gone.

I felt my arms and legs with my hands. Solid. I fluttered my eyes to be sure they were open. They were. These actions assured me that I was awake. I hadn’t drifted off to sleep and dreamt I heard an owl talk to me. Or had I? How could I ever know for sure?

What I did know was that those words I distinctly heard spoken by a strange little owl, in my imagination or not, were the words I needed to bring me out of my uncertainty and set me on a straightforward path to my goal.

For the next few years, my life continued as it always had. My parents, when not ignoring me, assigned me as many chores as I was able to handle while discouraging my dreams of a writing career. The admonishments about my duty to remain on the farm and work the land as all previous generations had done were unrelenting.

But the words of the strange little owl drove me forward. I completed my chores at home, doing my best to drive my family’s discouragement from my mind. I listened and learned in school; I continued to excel in writing classes.

And I continued to seek refuge in the barn loft, but did not see the little owl again until……………

I was 14 years old. It was the summer before I was to enter the 9th grade. High School. The last leg of my journey to college. I was anxious, nervous, and more uncertain about my academic ability than I had been since I had first encountered the little owl 5 years before. If I had really encountered him at all.

Was I good enough to earn grades worthy of a college acceptance? The uncertainty gnawed at me, kept me awake at night, sent me to the loft to be alone with my thoughts. As I lay my head on a bale of hay to try to unravel my stress, I heard it. The quiet, low screech. I sat up to see the little owl perched on a box in the far corner of the loft.

Were the words I heard in my head? Did he speak them? Did I see his mouth move? I don’t know. I only know what I heard.

“You have done well. Your talent is there. It will carry you forward if you let it. Believe in yourself even when no one else will. You are enough.”

I blinked and he was gone. This time I did not bother to check to see if I was awake. I knew I was. I also knew that I heard the words I needed to keep me going. Spoken by an unusual-looking little owl. Or not.

During those next 4 years of high school, the pressure from my family to “ stop the foolish college dreamin’ and come to your senses” was overwhelming. I was needed to work the farm and where did I think I was going to get money for college anyway?

With the owl’s words spurring me on, I worked harder in school than I ever had in my life. I earned top grades in every subject. During my senior year, I applied to the State College because I figured it was affordable enough that I could pay my way by working weekends and summers.

Without my knowledge, my high school guidance counselor and English teachers submitted 4 years of my best writing to the college with letters of recommendation. I am not ashamed to tell you that when the letter came in the mail, I took it up to the loft and sobbed when I read it. A full 4-year scholarship was mine for the taking.

This time I wasn’t surprised when I heard the low screech of the now familiar owl. He flew right to me and perched on my arm. Looking straight at me, I heard him say, “Never stop believing in yourself. You will always be enough.” And he was gone.

I never saw him again, but his encouraging words kept me going through 4 years of college and a 30-year journalism career that took me around the world, covering monumental events for renowned magazines and newspapers. Four best-selling books and a Pulitzer Prize. It was difficult work, but I loved it and never stopped believing in my ability. I had proven that I was enough.

It was a bright sunny day when 6-year old Andy put his little hand in mine and led me to the treehouse his Daddy had built for him in the backyard of their typical suburban house. “Up there, Grandpa”, he said. “He’s up there. I promise I’m not lying. Daddy says lying is bad. He says I made him up. He says he’s my imagine friend. I don’t know what that means. I come up here to think about things by myself and yesterday I saw him. Honest, I did. He wasn’t like the owls I’ve seen in my picture books. He was smaller and fluffy and white. His face looked like a heart. He talked to me, Grandpa. He told me that I was smart and could grow up to be anything I wanted. You believe me, don’t you Grandpa?”

“Yeah, Andy”, I said. “I believe you.”