Visits

by: Joan Hitz

After my friends Ralph and June died within months of each other in 2003, a pair of cardinals appeared in my yard. Since they’d adored cardinals, and each Christmas sent cards depicting snowscapes lit by two tiny red birds, I named the ruby-feathered couple after them. Thereafter, the birds claimed a table at the finest outdoor restaurant in suburbia, and to this day, order the daily special: organic walnuts from Trader Joe’s. 

The human, June, first appeared in my life in 1973, as my sixth grade teacher, and two decades later, in 1994, as my cherished friend, when the Universe became a real estate broker, and placed me in an apartment right next door to her house.

For eight months, I luxuriated in June and her husband Ralph’s Sunday-morning door knocks, which led to spur-of-the-moment nature hikes and abductions to breakfast venues. The morning I moved away, June sent me off with a plate of delicate Finnish pancakes. 

I promised ongoing visits, and returned to their home for dinners, talks and bear hugs in their yellow-tiled foyer, year after year after year, for ten sweet years.

Now, June and Ralph, the birds (and there’ve been generations of them), are regulars in my yard. Morning and evening, these crimson puppeteers use radar, charm and invisible marionette strings to pull me from the walnuts on my countertop to the back porch railing. 

They “chip chip chip” outside my bedroom window at dawn, flutter near the kitchen window while I make coffee, and, when my car zips into the driveway, fly over the rooftop to wait out back for their nuts.

The original Ralph snatched his walnut from the railing while June hid in a nearby branch, awaiting his return from market. Sometimes he’d snack on the steps before flying back to feed June, beak to beak.

But once, and only once, in January 2006, the original June appeared calmly, right next to Ralph, on the steps. That was the afternoon I returned from the veterinarian after having to put my fifteen-year-old cat to sleep. When I leaned against the back door window to gaze into the yard, there they were, en pair, like a protective hug.

Back in 1974, at the conclusion of sixth grade, the class parents collected money for a present for Ralph and June. Knowing full well that these super-teachers would use a gift certificate to enrich their classrooms instead of themselves, the moms decided to give them something concrete, to keep. They chose a statue of a nature scene, its wooden base inscribed: “To the Laakkonens, for total dedication, from your outdoor learning classes, 1973 - 1974.”              

Ralph and June did keep that statue, front and center, in the bay window of their house. After they died, I passed by one day when the house was being shown to buyers. The real estate agent allowed me to step into the yellow-tiled foyer and walk through the house one last time. It was empty, except for a few items awaiting clean-up by their grown children. Still there: the statue.

Realizing it had no specific meaning to their kids, I called, asked, and was graciously given, after all those years, a gift I’d seen presented to beloved teachers when I was only just eleven.

It’s in my home, now, in a place of honor. A statue of a nature scene: a mother cardinal, feeding her babies, taking care of the young. The same thing that’s happening in my yard, year after year after year. 

By now, the original Ralph and June cardinals have passed on. Their children, today’s Ralphs and Junes, have become progressively more comfortable with the back door/railing arrangement. Even the females. 

A few days ago, a new June fluttered midair, near the center panel of the nine-paned door, just twelve inches from me. While I opened up to place a walnut on one rail, she watched from the other, and grabbed the nut before I’d even closed the door. 

I, like you, have suffered many losses. But I know (I do) that we really don’t leave each other. I believe that here, in life, we’re all out walking, on a great nature hike. The people who’ve died have “gone on ahead,” just a little further along up the trail. 

Of course, we’ll all get the chance, when the time is right, to “catch up.” While we’re here, though, our job (our joy) is to be who we really are, and to do what we really came to do. Like Ralph and June. 

And, on any good nature trail, while the people must travel it step after step, the birds are free to fly back and forth. 

And back again, for visits in time.