Birds are often seen as messengers symbolically in many different beliefs and throughout history. The crow is one of those birds that is associated with delivering important news or messages from the spirit realm.
When this specific crow arrived in my tree and seemingly peered into my soul I sensed this was not just one of the regular visits from our local corvid community; this feathered courier came bearing a message from the spirit realm.
I’ll be frank; hearing and sharing messages clearly from the spirit realm for other people is my jam, hearing messages for myself? Not so much. While I didn’t understand at the time, it took less than two months from this photo to begin to suspect what the message was.
My Dad never missed my birthday; despite how strained our relationship was at times, whether it was a message or a call (depending on how friendly we were feeling towards each other at the time), he would always let me know he loved me. But that year he missed it; and he missed my sisters too (same birthday, same Dad, different year, different Mom). When we tracked him down at the hospital I knew I couldn’t brush this off with a promise I’d visit him soon. I went right away.
There he was, lying in a hospital bed, frantically needing a cigarette and a vodka and beginning to worry this wasn’t going to be a short stay.
He was almost inconsolable, speaking of things I didn’t understand – at least not at the time. At one point he gazed off in the distance – at nothing but a hospital wall – yet I know he was seeing something. As I was getting ready to leave, I had actually already walked away, he called me back ‘I can see the crow. Can you?’ I tilted my head, attention captured – to anyone else this may have been gibberish, but I felt there was much more to this than his delirium. He looked as though he was listening to something ‘I can hear the crow too, can you?’ I replied that I couldn’t and he said eventually I would know what the meaning of this was.
Fast forward to July and the crows began to gather in my front yard, in the trees surrounding my balcony, on top of my balcony – all watching me. And then the call came, he wasn’t doing well, he wasn’t eating and although there was hope he would pull through, I knew it was his time to go. When I arrived home that evening two crows were waiting for me at my front door. And the next day as I arrived home from spending the day with him, death rattling his bones and lungs, with barely any moment of lucidity there were more crows than I could count sitting on my fence, at my front door waiting for me.
He came to my dreams that night … to let me know it was time for him to go.
And the next morning as I burst out of my front door, tears in my eyes and ache in my heart at the phone call from my sister letting me know he was gone, there was a symphony, a cacophony of caws as crows filled the sky.
He was right; eventually and unfortunately I finally understood what he had sensed, saw, in the hospital that evening in February…