Happy Birthday, Grace Mae

There is an old shed in our yard whose sash window frames have been stuck open from both the bottom and the top since the day we first saw this house five years ago. And four years ago today a bird flew into the space between those frames and could not get out.

Reboo, who was just Rebecca then, saw the bird first and then Chris and I saw it, and heard it—heard the strumming of its wings against the glass, saw it tossing between the panes, scooting itself a few inches up then sliding down, not able to make it to either opening. Rebecca tried to slide the swollen window frames away from each other, tried to keep them staggered so as not to crush the bird. “Up!’ we coached, “ the other one! “No, no, the other one!” It seemed like that bird was never going to get out and then all of the sudden it fluttered over the top of the splintered wood frame to a perch in the lilac bush a few feet away.

I had two contractions during the 10 minutes it took Rebecca to free that bird. I don’t remember who decided it was time to go to the hospital then, but we did. An hour later I was naked in a tub of water trying to make my way through contractions that were separated by less than a breath. And then, after 15 minutes of pushing, the frames of my body slid apart and our baby was born.

On Gracie’s first birthday I took her blueberry picking and when we got home I saw that there was a bird stuck between the sashes of that very same window. If this post were a piece of fiction I would not be able to tell this part of the story because it would seem too contrived. But it really happened. I set Gracie and the blueberries down on the grass and I freed the bird. There was probably a bird stuck in that window (why didn’t we ever close it?) many other days of that first year with Grace, but I never saw it. Maybe I saw that one because it had been a year since I saw the other, and I was looking. Maybe that is what birthdays are for.