Learning to Fly Again

Stacy lost two things that were integral to her being that day, her mother and the ability to walk.

She blamed herself every second of every minute of every day, and nothing I, or the doctors, said or did could change or lessen the pain of guilt that consumed her soul. Although I tried, oh God, how I tried to convince her that none of this was her fault, I couldn't bring her back from the deep dark place her mind escaped to after the accident.

Cassandra, the child psychologist we’ve been working with for over six months, said she's confident that Stacy will be ok.

Saying, "Stacy needs time, Phil. Maybe even a lot of time, but the time will come when she's able to process and accept all that has happened. You just need to be there for her in any way you can. Anyone close to Stacy needs to stay in her life to keep showing her the same love that she’s grown up knowing. She's lost so much Phil, but she needs to know that she hasn't lost everything."

I knew in my heart that what Cassandra said was true; Stacy was young so she would learn to live with the loss. But every day that I watched my ten-year-old daughter struggle with overwhelming grief ripped another small piece from my heart.

My wonderful, vibrant little girl that ran through life exuding happiness was no longer there. How could she come back from something like this, something that would destroy any adult?

I know that every mother and child relationship is special, but their relationship was something more profound. Tina and Stacy were much more than mother and daughter; they were best friends that did everything together. It's hard to explain, but it was like they were two people sharing one soul, and now that Tina was gone, it felt like half of Stacy was missing.

She never laughed or smiled anymore and hardly ever spoke more than a few words. She used to hug me saying, "I love you, daddy,” every day, but now I can’t remember the last time she spoke those words. Was it after, before or on the day of the accident? Everything about that day or the days after is somehow jumbled and mixed up in my mind.

How could I help Stacy heal if I couldn’t even begin to heal myself?

The doctors told me I needed to grieve, but how could I do that when my daughter may never walk again? How could I do anything other than comfort her and be strong for her? I knew the accident was nobody's fault, but I also knew that because of my actions just before the crash, Stacy thought she was to blame.

****

It was a beautiful fall afternoon when we started the two-hour drive up to Tina's parent's farm and were less than half an hour from the turnoff to the farm road with the car filled with happy laughter and singing when it happened. We’d driven an hour north before turning west on highway seven, enjoying the bright fall colours as Stacy shouted out each new colour she saw.

"There's a gold one, daddy. Oh, look, mommy, that one is almost red. It's so beautiful."

Being late afternoon, the sun was low in the sky, and we were driving directly into it. Even with my sunglasses on, I couldn’t see more than a few hundred feet ahead of us.

I was driving with Tina in the passenger seat while Stacy sat in the back with her tablet on playing children’s songs at full volume when I hit the pothole in the road. The tablet stopped playing when it fell to the floor, and I heard Stacy say, "Oh no, I broke it," as I looked in the rearview mirror to see her removing her seatbelt.

I quickly turned my head and spoke to her with anger, "Stacy, no. Put your belt back on now!"

That’s when Tina screamed, “Phil! Watch out!”

I instantly turned back, but it was too late as we slammed into the side of the deer that was darting across the highway. The car rolled sideways twenty feet down the embankment before crashing into the trees and coming to a stop.

****

I didn’t know what happened until the next day when I woke up in the hospital. When I opened my eyes, the police were standing over me with Tina's parents beside them, looking lost. I knew something was terribly wrong. Jack, Tina's father, came to my side and took my hand before saying the words that ripped my heart out.

I had trouble focusing on Jack's words as I'd suffered a bad concussion in the accident and was medicated for the pain. It felt like I was in a fog, slipping in and out of reality; I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or awake.

I realized I was in a neck brace as I struggled to speak.

“Where are Tina and Stacy?”

Jack’s eyes welled with tears as he started to shake; it took everything in him to answer,

“Tina is gone, Phil.”

I felt something inside me break as I stared into the eyes of this shattered man; the strongest man and best father I knew. He’d been through many painful moments in his long life but this was different, and he looked destroyed as he tried to comfort me.

Tina was everything to him; she was the light of his life and, as he had told me more than once, the best thing he ever did. My father left when I was very young so I never knew what a real father was until I met Jack. He was everything a father should be and showed me through his actions how to be a good father to my little girl.

He explained what had happened and that the doctors said there was no pain as Tina had died instantly on impact with the deer.

The pain on his face as he spoke shook me to my core.

I could see the truth in his eyes, and the room started to fade away as I heard a loud sound, like the sound of an animal in great pain. The sound enveloped and confused me until I realized it was coming from me. Jack bent down and held me tight as I thrashed on the bed screaming,

"No, Jack, no. Please no."

I shook uncontrollably for a minute before Jack's wife, Mary, came to my side taking my other hand, saying, "There's more Phil."

“Oh God no, please not Stacy?”

She laid her hand on my heart, "No. Stacy is alive, Phil, but she's hurt bad. She was thrown from the car, and her back was broken. She's in surgery now. They’re trying to repair her spine.”

****

After three months and three surgeries, with next to no improvement, I finally got to bring Stacy home.

Those were the hardest three months of my life. First, there was Tina's funeral which I refused to include Stacy in no matter what anybody said. Some family members disagreed with my decision, but the people that mattered most, Jack and Mary, agreed that Stacy wasn't ready for the finality of the funeral and would deal with the loss of her mother in her own time and in her own way. Maybe one day I will regret not including her somehow, but I couldn't put my little girl through that experience.

For the first month after the accident, I spent every moment I could at the hospital only going home to sleep when Stacy was down for the night. I don't think I slept more than three hours a night during that time. I would spend my evenings wandering around the house, touching or holding anything that reminded me of Tina. But the thing is, everything in our home held some part of her within it.

Tina always said that home is a feeling, not a place. A house is just a box that holds possessions and is only made a home by the light of love that lives within its walls. Our house became a home before Stacy was born, lit by Tina's glow.

But now, as I struggled to sleep every night, this place that was my beacon of life didn't feel like home anymore; it felt like a box. The pain of losing Tina and watching my daughter becoming lost in grief and guilt was stealing the light from our home, leaving me in a very dark place.

As one day led to the next with no real change in Stacy's condition, I started to slip farther and farther down a rabbit hole of despair until Jack stepped in and shook me out of my funk.

If anybody could understand what was happening to me, it was him.

He said, "You have to pull yourself out of this, Phil. For Stacy's sake, you need to swallow the pain and stand on your feet. She needs you now more than ever. I know how you feel, I feel it also, but we both need to be there for that little girl."

His words brought me back to life and Jack and I, with the help of some good neighbours, spent the next two months changing our house to suit the new reality of Stacy in a wheelchair. We built ramps at the front and back of the house while knocking down some walls on the main floor so that we could build two new bedrooms there. Many times over those months, Jack would hold me as I cried while our loving home transformed into something completely different.

We finally brought Stacy home in early February, five months ago, but since that time, there's been minimal improvement in her state of mind and zero improvement in the damage to her spine.

The chain of events that would change everything started on the day I came in from the backyard to find her sitting in her wheelchair, staring at our family picture. I had taken all the photos down a few days after Stacy came home because she would break down every time she looked at them, but she’d found this one in the desk drawer and was quietly crying as she touched her mother’s face.

I rushed to her side and held her as she sobbed, "I miss her so much. I don't want to live here anymore; it hurts too much. Can I please go back to the hospital, daddy?"

Her words broke my heart, so I decided right there and then that I needed to bring her to the farm. At least there, we would have the support of her grandparents, while she would have the distraction of the animals that she loved. I spoke to Stacy about going to the farm for the summer, she agreed, so we called her grandparents that night and made plans to drive up that coming weekend.

****

When we arrived at the farm four days later, I could tell that Jack had been busy. We could see Mary in her apron walking down the newly built wheelchair ramp with their golden retriever, Rusty. I waved to Mary before helping Stacy from the car and into her chair as Rusty ran happily to her side.

Mary wiped her hands on her apron and gave Stacy a long hug, telling her she loved her before coming to me and doing the same thing.

A feeling of warmth filled my heart as I felt the love in Mary's arms as she held me. She had that familiar scent of baking cookies that always reminded me of her, but she also had another scent that calmed my soul somehow; she smelled like home. I had my back to Stacy and held Mary for a minute, thanking her, until she whispered and told me to look as she nodded towards her granddaughter.

When I turned and looked, my heart filled with joy as Rusty had his front paws in Stacy's lap, while she was hugging him tightly with her head against his. As I watched, she lifted her head and scratched the dog's ears saying, "I love you, Rusty."

I felt tears come to my eyes as she scratched his ears with a warm smile on her face. It was the first time I had seen that smile since the accident, and I felt something I hadn't felt in a very long time; hope.

Mary told me that Jack was in the barn and asked Stacy if she would like to help with baking cookies.

Stacy asked, “Can Rusty come with us?”

Mary laughed, "I don't think I could stop him if I tried," as Rusty danced around Stacy, waiting to follow her anywhere.

I watched as Mary pushed Stacy up the ramp and into the house before walking down the dirt driveway that ran from the back of the house to the barn a few hundred feet away. I could see that the main doors to the barn were closed, but as I got close, Jack came out from the small door on the side.

He had a large smile on his face as he walked towards me before pulling me into his arms, saying, "Welcome, son. I'm so glad you're doing this. I think this will be good for her."

We stood outside the barn for a few minutes, talking about the drive-up and how Stacy was doing before he said, "There's something in the barn I want to show you. I think Stacy will love this.”

He walked us to the side door before, piquing my curiosity by putting his finger to his lips and saying, "We need to be very quiet."

We walked into the barn and closed the door silently behind us as Jack said, "We'll wait here for a minute to let our eyes adjust first."

It was hard to see at first as the only light seeped in from cracks in the wood and around the hayloft doors. It took a minute or two for my eyes to adjust, but when they did, I could see reasonably well.

He led me to the center of the barn pointing up at one of the massive roof beams towards the rear, asking “Can you see it?"

It took me a few seconds, but I did see it. Right, where several cross beams supported the central beam, I could see an Owl standing, staring down at us. I didn't know a lot about owls but knew this one was a barn owl because of its pale heart-shaped face and large black eyes.

Owls were Stacy's favourite thing in the world; even at ten years old, she was almost an expert in them as Tina and her would spend hours reading about them or colouring in owl colouring books.

Stacy had a poster of a barn owl hanging on her bedroom wall, and this one staring down at me from the rafters looked exactly like it.

She loved that poster and had even given the owl a name.

She called it Wholoo.

“My God, Jack, Stacy will love this.”

"I know, but it gets better. That's a female, and she has five little ones up there with her."

I knew what this would mean to Stacy, “How old are they? Are they trying to fly yet?

"No. I don't think so as they are still a little downy, but one of them fell a few days ago, so I put it back up there with its mother. I think it's hurt, but I didn't want to leave it on the floor here. There are just too many things around here that would properly eat it.”

We left the barn and walked back to the house as it was close to dinner time, and Mary had rung the old-fashioned cowbell, letting us know that it was time to come in.

That night at dinner, we told Stacy about the owls; she got excited and wanted to go and see them right then, but Jack told her it would have to wait until the next day, as the mother would need to hunt soon.

That night I slept soundly for the first time in months and awoke to feel refreshed and happy in the morning. Jack and Mary had converted their main floor office space into a bedroom for Stacy and me, but when I rolled over to say good morning, I could see she wasn't there. I could hear voices coming from the kitchen as the smell of breakfast cooking set my stomach to growling, so I quickly dressed and rushed to join them.

When I got to the kitchen, I was surprised to see Jack and Mary, but Stacy wasn't there.

I asked, “Where’s Stacy?”

Jack smiled and said, “She’s in the barn.”

“What? You let her go to the barn by herself?”

Mary laughed, "Phil do you know what time it is? We've all been up for three hours. Stacy's already had breakfast, so Jack took her to the barn to see the owls."

After finishing the best breakfast and coffee I'd had in months, the three of us cleaned up the kitchen before walking to the barn to check on Stacy.

Rusty was sleeping on the ground a few feet from the barn door when we arrived and lifted his head to look at us before lying back down again. I bent down to rub his head a little and give him a scratch before heading to the door with Jack and Mary. We could all hear sounds coming from inside the barn as we approached.

I could hear Stacy's voice first, "Wholoo," but then a few seconds later, the sound returned a little different, "WhoWho."

We stood outside listening for a minute as this exchange of sounds continued before Jack said,

“My God, She’s talking to the owl.”

We quietly stepped into the barn, closing the door behind us as we waited for our eyes to adjust. It only took a few seconds for my eyes to accept the dark but a little longer for my mind to understand what I was seeing. None of us moved as we watched the unbelievable scene playing out before us.

Stacy sat in her chair in the middle of the barn with her hands on her knees, palms up, moving her fingers in the come here motion each time she said, “Wholoo.” I looked towards the area she was looking and couldn't believe my eyes as I saw the mother owl on the barn floor moving closer and closer to Stacy each time they exchanged sounds. It honestly looked like they were speaking to each other. When the owl got within a couple of feet of her, it started trying to open its wings while jumping up, but it looked like its right-wing wasn't working.

I started moving toward her, but Jack stopped me and said, "Wait."

Stacy kept saying, “Wholoo,” as she bent as far as she could forward holding her hands out towards the owl. We all watched in shock and awe as, in an incredible act of trust, the owl jumped into her arms.

She held it close to her chest as we approached, and I could see tears in her eyes. As we got near them, the owl looked at us with fear as it nestled itself closer to Stacy. It kept looking at her, then looking up to the rafters making the "WhoWho," sound.

Stacy looked at me with anguish in her eyes saying, "She's hurt, daddy. She can't feed her babies. We need to help her. Please."

I didn't know what to do, so I looked at Jack. He smiled at Stacy saying, "Don't worry, honey, we'll try our best,” before he turned to Mary asking her to call their vet to ask him to come to the farm.

Jack and I stayed in the barn with Stacy until Mary came back from the house saying,

“Doctor King is on his way. He’ll be here in about an hour. He said to keep the mother owl warm but don’t touch the babies until he arrives. He also said to not take the owl out of the barn.”

The vet showed up in less than an hour which surprised us all.

Stacy was overjoyed when he said the mother owl wasn't hurt bad and would be fine. Over the next few hours, he set the wing in the proper position and showed us how to care for the mother owl and her young. He said it would take about two weeks for the wing to heal, but if we took care of and protected them all, everything should be fine.

Over the next two weeks, it became apparent what Stacy would be when she grew up as she spent every waking moment with her owl family, taking care of their every need. They trusted her with their lives and would only let her, touch or feed them. I believe they thought of her as one of their family and the young ones even started playing with her. They would chase her around the barn trying to jump on the wheelchair as she wheeled around as fast as she could, trying to outmaneuver them. The mother owl would stand off to the side, making her "WhoWho" sounds like she was cheering the young ones on while Stacy rolled around laughing uncontrollably.

I believe that the mother owl knew that Stacy was there to help heal her and her family, but even more than that, I believe that owl knew it was there to help heal Stacy.

After ten days, the vet came back to see how the owls were doing and said everything was perfect. The baby owls were gaining weight, and the mother owl's wing looked healed, but he wanted to leave the support on for a few more days to be sure. He showed Stacy how to remove it telling her to do it on the fourteenth day. Before he left, he shook my hand and said he thought my little girl should be an animal doctor as she had an uncanny ability to make them trust her. I agreed with him and thanked him for teaching her all that he did, ensuring him that I would do everything I could to help her reach that goal.

On the morning of the big day, Stacy was up before everybody else and went to the barn on her own. Mary was usually the first one up, at 7 am, preparing things for breakfast. Jack and I would usually get up around eight, so I was surprised when Mary woke me at seven saying that Stacy had already gone to the barn. I quickly got up and dressed as Mary woke Jack. Mary always helped Stacy get dressed in the morning, but this morning she said she heard the door open and close before she came down to see that Stacy had dressed herself and left.

We all met back in the kitchen, and as we were putting our shoes on, I saw Stacy's shoes sitting beside the door. It was a warm morning, so I wasn't concerned as I knew it was hard for her to put her shoes on herself. We knew that Stacy was very excited about today as she wanted to see the mother owl fly, so we rushed to the barn to see the joy on her face when that moment happened.

When we arrived at the barn door, we could hear Stacy's loud laughter, but she was also saying,

“No. Stop, it tickles.”

We slowly entered the barn so we wouldn’t startle her or the owls, to see the mother owl sitting on the back of the wheelchair rubbing her face against Stacy's. Her back was to us, so she didn't see or hear us until we were very close. The owl noticed us first and spread her wings before flying up to the rafters, but Stacy was still laughing and saying, "No, it tickles."

I approached from behind, but Mary had come from the side and putting her hand to her face, started to cry, which scared me. I didn't know what was happening until Mary said, "Phil come here. Look," as she pointed at Stacy's feet. Jack was beside me, and as we moved towards Mary, I looked where she was pointing before falling to my knees in shock.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing as Stacy looked at me and said,

“Daddy make them stop. It tickles.”

Two of the baby owls were in front of Stacy, rubbing their heads against the underside of her bare feet.

I looked at her asking, "Stacy,can you feel that?" but she just laughed.

Jack spoke up and said, "No, Phil. Look!" That's when I saw it.

Every time the owls touched her feet, her toes would curl, and her feet would move at the ankles trying to move away from them.

Mary and Jack pushed the owls away from her feet as I lifted her out of the chair and held her in my arms, saying,

"I love you, honey. I love you so much."

Tears were streaming down my face as my little girl hugged me tight saying, “I love you, daddy.”