Mighty Wren

Photo by Angel Villanueva on Unsplash

The 13-day Hindu “Sacred Mourning Interval,” offers the language and structure we lack in our “get over it” world. I’m in Phase 3, Sapindikarana or “Re-Engaging with Life.” Rather than pursuing closure I’ve chosen to follow spiritual tradition and continue my bond with Ray. Instead of our relationship ending I’m integrating his essence into our future. How you ask?

Throughout his life Ray persisted with steadfast devotion to journalism.

This means I will continue on the path he made for me, as a journalist. My life changed the day he came home from his editor-in-chief job at our Monterey County newspaper and told me the society columnist quit (yes, a society columnist) and that he volunteered me for the job. I was more than a rookie; I had no clue. Since then I’ve written thousands of words, published investigative articles and poetry.

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There’s a bird box custom made for wrens in our back yard. Funny thing, I always thought of wrens as “she,” so feminine and delicate with their bubbly chitter. But how can a woman-wren add to the wren population without a man-wren?

For all their cuteness the wrens are courageous. Their humble box next door to the magpie nest is an easy target. Magpies. Known for stealing other birds’ eggs. To protect their own, they build twiggy monstrosities with a roof and hidden entrance.

Next door to the magpie mc-mansion are spunky, quarreling sparrows. Their bunker is under our eaves. Occasionally one of their family feuds erupts into the lilac.

The wrens abide in spite of their threatening and contentious neighbors while the cat keeps watch from the tall grass for any hint of wren carelessness. These small brown souls singing truth to power, flit in and out of the hole in their box as a dare to all comers.

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One of Ray’s friends and journalist colleagues told me day before yesterday how Ray “was dedicated to pursuing the truth, defending against censorship, and that he protected the truth against all comers.”

Taking my cue from the wrens the second trait of Ray’s I’ve chosen to adopt and integrate is courage. He would take on any adversary he deemed a threat, as a journalist or human being. Not in a confrontation but with reason and intelligence. He had balance, physical and mental. He could skip over a boulder field and out-debate anyone.

And he loved birds. In his one of his journals he writes about how he revived a bird that flew into our window and when the bird flew off, he felt a lightness he couldn’t explain.