Dusk came on unawares. A cry against the dark triggered our last conversation. “Can you hear the blackbird?” I asked. “Magpie,” she said. My mother has been dying by degrees this autumn, as surely as the shortening of our days. Perhaps this is a fitting time to bow out for a May child, named after the life-giving month of her birth. My own life-giver’s final journey accompanies me on every walk, colours every observation.
First light on her last day? A song jerks me out of solemnity, robins in stereo, one left, one right. One more from a bush a few steps on, another by the biggest oak.
Over the past few weeks, I have wondered what it is that I register in the song of these highest of sopranos. Is it melancholy, wistfulness or hope? Each time, I pull myself up and remind my indulgent self of the reality that birds have only the future in their throats. Robins have purpose without a past, and their new season has begun – one that demands territorial challenge, assertions of position, the preliminaries for breeding already under way. Though the song tinkling out on all sides lacks the sustained fluency of spring, these little assertive spits have a fervent energy. Whose spirits would not lift at such statements of intent?
A dog walker acquaintance rounds the corner and offers pulling leads and knowing kindness, since he is aware. But I’m all eagerness, and share my elation at the robin abundance. “Wouldn’t know a robin if I heard it,” he says.
Down at the riverside, another robin leads the way, its legs so thin, and the morning light still so murky, that its rounded belly appears to float a few centimetres above the path. It keeps a safe distance, flutter and stop, flutter and stop, then veers off into the meadow.
Shortly I will go back to the hospital for what I know will be my final visit. But I’ll never forget these fleeting moments of solace with the robins, nor our last words together when my naturalist’s exactness didn’t matter.
“Magpie,” said my mother. “Magpie,” I said. And the blackbird fell silent.
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