Geordie loved birds; he rescued them, raised them, tended to them. He was the most maternal man I know, cupping chicks from a fallen nest, in the warmth of his gentle hands, nursing them. From stories, his sister told me, ever since he was a child, somehow he could speak to them. His way of being with animals, and in nature, was one of the things I feel in love with. He felt a part of the land, the sea to me... and now the sky.
Meeting Geordie, felt like years of drawing close to him, even before we knew each other, like two magnets who felt familiar to each other. With all our differences, we felt the same on the inside, knowing each other as the shore knows the sea, and as a bird takes to air.
As I write this now, I look out of the window of our bedroom, one of the last few times, as I shall be needing to move from our winter rental, move from these memories, so writing these words are also a remembering for me, movement catches my eye. I see a falcon hovering, its wings fluttering in the wind, as it watches something on the cliff. My eyes are pulled suddenly to two Canadian geese flying low across the garden, unusual for this time of year, I think.
Geordie kept binoculars in his car, at home, with his tools. We always stopped what we were doing whenever the osprey, or the red tail hawks, or when they returned to the island, the bald eagles winged their way into our sight. The osprey nest of one of our neighbors was something we'd regularly pull over his truck for, Scout our Aussie, immediately sensing something to be sensed.
It was from him that I began to learn the bird names, and each time I would recognize what bird it was, we'd both smile to each other, in the way a teacher and student do, but more so, he was sharing something that he loved with me, and I loving what he loved, was a gift back to him.
In the last few days of Geordie's life we would walk outside to the edge of the cliff near our home, and when he grew weaker to the garden beside our bedroom door, barefoot, so that he could feel the earth beneath his feet. He said he belonged to the earth, and he always did. And in his belonging to the earth, many friends and family felt a sense of belonging when they were with him. He gave himself to a lot of people, and he was the most precious and rarest of gifts in my life.
Birds accompanied us as Geordie was passing; the last time we walked to the cliff together, a red tail hawk flew across our path, low so that you could hear the air on her wing, and I said to Geordie, tears in my heart, "Your ready to take to wing." We held each other, I breathed him in, as we watched the ocean waves rolling in.
He would look out of our bedroom windows and see the seagulls, and say, "Seagulls are under appreciated."
So each time I see a seagull, a red tail hawk, a crow, or a lone bird that flies into my day, I feel Geordie. And imagine his spirit flying free. Whispering to me. His messages from the Spirit World. The camera helps me to feel the presence of Spirit, especially when I slow the shutter speed, so that the camera traces the birds dance across the sky, revealing what looks like the writing of an unknown language that I imagine is now Geordie's.
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