Doves

So let me explain what happened the other day...

First i should preface this with an earlier incident:

It was March 1999 when my beloved grandmother passed away. We were very close and I absolutely adored her. She passed away kind of unexpectedly and I've never really gotten over it. So in March, we all flew to Hawai'i. We were pulling out of the driveway to go to her funeral.

All of a sudden and out of nowhere, a beautiful white pigeon appeared. Now, in all the years i spent in Hilo, i NEVER saw this kind of bird, not ever close to the house, actually, not anywhere. This bird stood behind the car as we were reversing out of the driveway. The bird took a few steps back, the car reversed a bit, then it took a few steps back again... As we began our descent down the small hill, this mysterious white bird remained standing at the top. She watched our car go all the way down the hill. I immediately knew it was my grandmother. We all knew.

Fast forward to my birthday, March 2nd 2006. My grandparents were always great about my birthday, they never forgot, even when they got really sick. Lately i've been thinking a lot about them. On this day, I wore a special ring--my grandmother's most treasured piece of jewelry.

So anyway, i'm at work and it's about 3.30 in the afternoon. Cappy calls me in distress. "There are two DOVES that somehow got in!" At first, i thought she said "two ducks." Great, I thought, a field day for the Tubular One--her food source yapping and flapping all over the place. Then I realised she was saying "doves." Me: "Oh my god, open the windows!" Cappy: "I can't they're dive bombing me! They're perched up really high!" Now here's the weird thing, we only had one window open slightly. We've NEVER had birds enter the space in the four years we've been here!

Apparently these two grey doves, one male and one female were flying all over the place, perching here and there. Thankfully, a very freaked out Cappy was able to find a helpful neighbor. She helped her put out some bread and open up the windows.

The male bird was the first to fly out, yet the female bird took her time. She seemed to perch from various places: the track lighting rail, and nearly each exposed pipe and vent. The female bird finally did fly out, but not before having a long lingering look at Cappy.

Later, Cappy realized that the doves weren't really dive bombing, just checking out the space. She said, in retrospect, that they seemed protective and curious. I laughed to myself imagining my grandparents' mischievious year of the monkey spirits. After all the ruckus, some parts of the floors looked like a bridge underpass and the table tops looked like the night after a 70's drag show. Tiny feathers everywhere.

And I absolultely felt that I had a visit that day. It was a wonderful gift.