Squirrel at the Birdbell

A Little Story About the Importance of Fully Healing After Big Loss

“Slowly, slowly the wound to the soul begins to make itself felt, like a bruise, which only slowly deepens its terrible ache, till it fills all the psyche.”

— D.H. Lawrence, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”

Iwas widowed at the age of thirty-two.

The day after my husband, John, died, I was heading from the living room back upstairs to have a shower when I thought I saw something strange in the front yard. At first, I thought it John’s black work sock hanging from the birch tree. But that didn’t make sense. Mind you, nor had the fact that I’d spent the previous day in the ICU unit, holding his hand as he died of a brain injury (as the result of a preventable fall at an unsafe workplace).

Overnight, my life had turned into the kind of kid’s book where you have to find ten things wrong with a picture, like a person walking on air or a house with no door.

Or a childless widow.

I walked over to the living room window to take a better look. It wasn’t John’s sock in the tree…it was a squirrel hanging upside down, stealing seeds from the birdbell.

“Googie?”

I hadn’t heard my childhood nickname in years. I turned around to face my brother, Doug.

“Yeah?”

“Are you OK?” he asked.

I managed a small smile. “Nope.”

“Sorry,” he said, sheepish. “Dumb question.”

“I’ve never seen a squirrel at our birdbell before,” I said. “I thought it was one of John’s socks!”

Doug looked at me a moment, concerned. Then he said, “I uh…I don’t want to rush you but there are an awful lot of things we’re going to have to deal with today.”

And a squirrel at the birdbell, I gathered, wasn’t one of them.

In the shower, I used John’s shampoo, conditioner, and soap…personal items he’d never touch again. After a few gut-wrenching sobs, I stepped out of the shower and saw his towel…