I'm Still Here

I'm sitting in my usual morning spot on the couch, ready to read my Bible and morning devotionals, just like Buddy and I did every morning.  The empty rocking chair sits beside me.  I open the blinds and see that it is foggy this morning.  I thank God for being so near in the clouds right outside my door.

I hear the mockingbird in the tree outside my lanai.  Two years ago at this same time a mockingbird sang continuously out there, night and day.  His incredible repertoire of vocalizations - incessant and endless - finally began to make me laugh.  Especially thinking how our grumpy neighbor was probably going nuts listening to it all night while he tried to sleep.  Buddy had been gone only weeks at that time, and the thought came to me then that somehow that bird had something to do with him.  Buddy used to make me laugh every day; I was missing that and then this bird had started making me laugh, right in the midst of my grief.

So this morning I am reminded of that time as I listen to my talented bird perform his whole routine outside my door. I open the sliding glass door and walk out onto the lanai to listen more closely.  Standing there, I see movement in the grass to my right.  I look and it's a bunny.  Oh my goodness.  We called each other 'Bunny' and we collected stuffed bunnies.  (He called them Fuzzy Americans.  Said that's what they preferred to be called because it was more politically correct.  See what I mean about him making me laugh?)    So here is this beautiful brown bunny.  I stand stock still.  He comes closer and sits right in front of me outside the screen.  After hopping back and forth a few times in front of me, he goes on his way. 

My mockingbird and my bunny both visiting me today, with God right there in the foggy cloud. 

Buddy is ever near.  I know it.  And I am reminded how brave and strong he was.  I vow to be like him.