Unconventional family connections.
When I was a kid, a barred owl lived in the tree outside of my bedroom window. Until one day, it vanished.
It feels a bit silly, but it was almost like that owl would be checking up on me. It'd sit perched in the branches, surveying the woods behind our house, then spin its head around to look backward at me. Neither of us would flinch.
Birds were never really my thing, but my grandmother on my dad's side liked them. She'd sit in the sunroom of their house and say "OH! hello" to the chickadees who'd stop by. It was the cardinals that would silence her, though. Those are the ones that would make her trail off mid-sentence and just watch with a contented smile.
My grandmother used to ask about "my" owl the same way my mom would ask about a friend at school. "How's Bryan—what's he been up to? Haven't seen him lately?" By the time I was maybe 10 or 11, the owl had mysteriously disappeared. Over the years, I heard their distinct "who cooks for you?" call. I always looked, but only saw one a handful of times—and not in the tree outside my window. I'd later learn that barred owls are typically sighted in pairs because they mate for life. They're also known to return to the same territories; even the same nests.
Mine was always solo.
In 2019, right before my mom moved, she sent me a text. I'd been living in Wyoming at the time, so I'd been getting a few too many texts with photos from her, asking about a piece of furniture or an old keepsake. That time, instead of a begrudging sigh, I'd smiled wildly. The photo in her message was of a barred owl sitting on the railing of her porch in the backyard. Just one.
Today while driving to my mom's place for the holidays, it'd been snowing hard. Winding my way through the backroads, tree branches were sagging over the road under the weight. One in particular was bent in such a way that it resembled an arch. Sat atop it, hovering over the median, was a barred owl staring at me while I drove through.
Just one.
Our Daily MAP Year Prompt
114/365
Do you have any signs, symbols, or omens that have followed you through the decades?
onward.
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