Carrying On The Tradition

This is my birdbath and bird seed storage bin. This is not the original birdbath, but a replacement from a few years ago after my dad accidentally knocked the other one over. Through the years, mom and dad always made sure the birdbath was filled and birdseed was put out for the birds. They enjoyed seeing the birds and squirrels come and overtake the yard. We would get different kinds of birds that I honestly could not tell you the species other than the usual black crows and what I think are pigeons (we called them gorditas because they look chunky).

If you took the time to watch them, you could see the personalities of each species as they interacted with each other. It could be entertaining to watch them as they would puff up to try and get to the food first even though it was spread all over the yard. There was plenty of room and food for everyone but there was always those few who would bully the others for territory.

My mom would constantly clean out the original birdbath which was white in color. She would get comet and literally scrub it down and rinse it out until it was to her liking. The time came when she or my dad were not physically able to fill the birdbath or put out the birdseed, so I took over the job. I told myself I was not going to clean out the birdbath like she did with Comet.

Well, that did not last. I ended up doing the same thing and carrying on the tradition of cleaning the birdbath to her standards. After my dad passed, I carried on the task for mom because I think she enjoyed the birds more than dad did and it made her happy to see the birds visiting us and truth be told I did too.

After mom passed a year and a half ago, I stopped putting water in the birdbath, cleaning it, and putting birdseed out. I do not know if that was my way of grieving because it was something that I did for mom and dad that brought them joy and I figured what was the point of it now. I could not tell you how long this went on until I snapped out of it. One day it hit me that it brought me joy too. I missed doing this simple thing of providing food and water for the birds. Seeing the cardinals come around make me feel like it’s mom and dad coming to visit me. So I have no choice but to continue this task so they can see that I am continuing their tradition.

On a side note, I have not been well for the past two weeks and ended up in the hospital recently. Upon my discharge, I still have no answers but left with more questions and still not feeling right. My primary physician is attempting to explore additional opinions and has submitted referrals to two different specialists. I have not been able to put food or water out for the birds in a while, but today despite not feeling great I decided it was time. I went outside put food, water, I do not quite have the energy to clean out the birdbath but I did rinse it out and refill it. Physically, I was forcing myself to perform this simple task, but despite that I see one lone cardinal in the birdbath. That was all I needed.