The Grace Of Miriam

My late father was a falconer, and wherever the harris hawks would fly, they would always travel back to his gauntlet and perch. Inspired, I dreamed of that very title. However, I became a life insurance salesman — a cardboard cut out and could fit into the American dream. Although I was unhappy, I forgave myself for my lackluster, and married the brightest-smiling redhead that ever graced the earth. Her aspirations flew higher than any winged creature, her spirit outgrown her environment like dandelions and her decisiveness multiplied like sweet alyssums in heat.

So we packed our belongings and I traded contracts for sun contact, and cubicles for land that surrounded a one floor home in the countryside. I relinquished a steady flow of income for an unruly river, and a fountain pen for rainstorms. Our entertainment became the nature that surrounded us. We lived off of a slender budget from her mothers passing, and made a dollar stretch by pennies.

Soon any perishable we could’ve bought at the store, we trained ourselves to grow, hunt, prepare and replenish. When our tender years were behind us and our last five dollars left our hands in exchange for toiletries, we became frightened. Her knees weren’t as springy like they used to be and my back went from the bed, to a chiropractors table, and back to bed. We traded grown goods for aspirin, and sold the tail end of our land to the neighboring farmer. By the end of our fifties, I was a life insurance salesman, again.

I drove twenty miles to obtain my license, and thereafter, normally commuted back and forth from the country to the city. Alas, we were blessed with income again. Twice a week we spent all but a hundred dollars. Our rustic, minimalist country home slowly accrued more possessions. Our old wickered nightstand was traded in for sturdy oak, then our bed suddenly had more memory. Before long, we lived in middle class luxury like the old days, that was until my wife had gotten ill.

One annual check up made the last year go from doctor's appointment from hematology, radiology and then oncology. From one blurb of cancer starting in her colon, poetically took over her body like her young desires. The cancerous cells outgrown her environment like dandelions, and their decisiveness to demolish her multiplied like sweet alyssum in heat. Not too long after being bedridden, I watched her ashes catch a ride on a summer breeze. Yet, as my hand let her ashes go, my heart refused to do the same.

With responsibilities in mind, I drove to work and looked forward to an empty chair at the table at home. I sat in the dark when I used to enjoy direct sun contact. When I used to venture to the river and soaked in the earth's minerals, my tears flooded my pores of my face like a sponge. I withdrew from my job from sick days, to vacation, to part-time, until I slenderly made my way out of the front door.

Retired at sixty five, I had no one to celebrate with. The insurance company that I worked for had fallen on hard times, and the coworkers I used to converse with seemingly vanished like they never existed. Soon, I felt like the memory of my life would be the same. With an unforgiving pain in my back and the framed photographs of my late wife, I decided if there was a better time than any, today would be the day.

With no children to write or family to call, I submitted an inner goodbye letter to God by the fireplace. Every step felt like anvils glued to my cracked heels while I visited Miriam’s resting place for the last time. The river was flowing even more wildly than Miriam’s hair when my fingers passed through it. The sun soaked grass smelled fragrant alike to the flowers many bees pollinated. I stayed on my knees at that spot until nightfall, when my time had elapsed.

“God forgive me!” I cried out, my shoulders shook as fast as a jackhammer. I lifted my revolver and pressed the berrol under my jowls, my false teeth clenched so hard that my jaw ached. Living a life alone was not a life worth living. I worked up the nerve to touch the trigger with my right index finger, and latched onto the firm, overgrown weeds with my left hand. With an aching chest, just as I was about to hold Miriam's had, I felt a talon hold mine.

A plethora of brown speckled feathers with a white chest obstructed my cataracts filled eyes. It’s bodyweight sunk my hand to my lap. I couldn’t believe it! A bird with large magnetizing eyes crying on my behalf with an ear-twitching screech. I stared in awe as it’s head movements swiveled, his fluffy chest feathers moved by my tender breath. I dropped the gun and raised my arm to greet the divine intervention.

“You’re a barn owl.” I whispered in faint amusement. I carefully lifted my right hand to touch her, but couldn’t work my nerve to connect. At last, when my frail index stroked down along her mantle, she didn’t flea. I wept heavily, and even my shaking bones didn’t affright the gracious alba. This was the first time I touched something with a heartbeat in years. With her next breath she flew to the nearest tree branch and observed me. I painfully stood with the gun and pondered the great novelty of a second chance.

“God, I’m a smart man, but this makes no sense.” I muttered with inflection. The adult sized wonder plucked unlatched feathers off of it’s lesser converts and continued without minding my tone. Remembering this was Miriam’s final resting place, I sobered from insanity and tossed the gun into the river to claim.

“Miriam,” I mumbled with glittering eyes and wavering vision, “If this was a sign I am reading it!” I shouted up at the owl. She paused her preening to give me a defaulted gaze. I lifted my hand, my body reciting the same stance my father made as a falconer. Not only did the barn owl perch on my hand, she stayed.

A foreign chuckle escaped my mouth while I headed back home with her company. Once in the door she flapped her wings and glided to the kitchen table. I immediately took a place and joined her. I had forgotten most of my father's teachings on a multitude of birds, but remembered I kept his training books in storage. I giddily trekked to the shed, uncovered a plastic container and unsnapped the lid. I collected an armful of books and returned inside the house to conduct research with my newly found friend, but she had long vanished through the open door.

Albeit that I was given a second chance, It was only that. My brief encounter with a feathered friend was over, but the spark of my first dream ignited and caught my neron’s on fire. I set the books down and began to read. Minutes turned into hours, which turned into black coffee and breakfast. Days passed and all I could do was emerge myself in old pictures and terms, literature on nature and wild birds.

After a few days I had rediscovered facts about barn owls that tucked behind fresher memories of Miriam. Owls aren’t friendly to humans and prefer seclusion from whatever threatens them. I also highlighted the rudimentary principle of falconry, that the time and the dedication of training a bird would run out my life clock.

I closed the books and sat on the rocking chair on the porch, dowbfoudly staring beyond the dark of night. A memory of the barn owl’s talons gripping to my paper-thin hand had me at tears. Suddenly my mind rattled from what I stared at beyond the distance. I stopped rocking and arose on my feet. Although I bore a heavy tremor, I started walking. I fought through the friction in both of my patellas and air-sucking shallow breaths to stand directly in front of farmer Bill’s red barn.

Sure enough at the top of the rafters perched the gracious owl. Highlighted by the moon peeking in through the roof holes, her face appeared whiter than Mirium’s wedding gown. I lifted my arm and performed a series of mouth ticks, which the owl didn’t respond to. So in that instance, I formulated an idea.

The very next morning I knocked on farmer Bill’s door with a proposition, a portion of my retirement income in exchange for his red barn. We settled on a mutual lump sum. Regardless of how unfair the price was, I was a proud owner of a rickety-red barn and the owl that dwelled inside. I spent many nights visiting her, and even named her Grace, the name that Miriam wanted to give our first born daughter if we had one.

Grace effortlessly went from bird to confidant. Miriam would’ve corrected me with a switch if she was still around to hear the stories I relayed about her. The longer I met with Grace, the longer I stayed in the barn with supplies to make myself at home when I had worked through my troubled mind. All was good until late August, when I entered a frosty morning to find that Grace had flown away due to the cavity in the roof.

Grief-stricken, I waited for Grace’s return. My mouse traps were set in the barn corners, but all they caught were mice. If it wasn’t a free buffet of rodents, there was nothing that would lure her back into my life. Without her distraction, the pain that I ignored amply returned. Some mornings I laid in bed until some nights. I was sure that I would wither away and slip back into the crater of emptiness, until the first of September when Grace had finally returned to the barn.

A confliction, brief lunacy, a payment to farmer Bill and a bit of polycarbonate sheets solved any chance that she would escape again. Grace was mine forever, or at least to the end of my forever. Over time I governed and sanctioned, and her parliament was me. Our parliaments were different. I became preoccupied with her loving me and briefly edged on the better side of madness. Grace’s rictal bristles and frantic flapping accompanied ear-piercing screeches inferred she was just mad.

One October morning before the sun’s peak, I traveled to the barn to find that Grace had not eaten again. This was not a common practice for the Tyto alba, or my Grace that I shared my time with. I led out my arm and called upon her, but unlike other times she didn’t respond. An inkling spoke to me that juddered my foundation like a gust of wind. She was either dying, or depressed. My eyes glossed over and I collapsed on my knees in dejection. My selfishness was to blame.

Grace’s environment outgrew her spirit, and her imprisonment would forbid her to ever experience wild, sweet alyssums in heat. With repentance, I opened the barn doors and stepped into the grazing land. The sun soaked into the pores in my face, and the rays penetrate through a chilly wind which hydrated my dry, brittled heart. Grace's decision didn’t waver as she emerged from the barn and perched on my gauntlet. A brief goodbye had a twinge in my throat when she nestled my cheek. Moments later and she took my mourning with her into the morning light. Grace had blessed me and she was gone.

“Grace, I want you to know something. I loved Miriam with my whole heart. It’s not the time she put into my life, it’s the life she put into my time.”