Was It A Gift From The Grave?

  It was Mother's Day 1997. The first Mother's Day after my mother passed away.  We lived in Shepherdsville, Kentucky on a 5 1/2 acre farm in the country.
  It was a beautiful warm sunny day and we were out in the yard doing some gardening. My family had bought me a bunch of flats of various flowers and plants and  I wanted to spend the day getting them in the ground.

  I wasn't in the greatest of moods since it was the first Mother's Day without my mother.  It was hard before because we lived so far away from her but at least I could talk to her on the phone.

  Michael, my husband was doing his best to lift my spirits and the kids were also trying to make it into a happy day for me.  I really appreciated it but still I felt so alone.  If you still have your mother then you just can't relate to what I was going through.

  I was greatful and all for my family. I mean any other day trying to get the kids to want to help in the maintaining of the yard and landscaping was next to impossible.  Well at least not without a bunch of I don't want to or totally disappearing from sight.

  My mom really loved birds.  Birds of all kinds and I know that, that's where my interest of our foul feathered friends came from.

  Anyways, there I was kneeled down in a flower garden that ran the length of our driveway. I was trying to keep my face away from the view of everyone because no matter what I did, I had a steady stream of tears falling down my face.  I was just so heavy-hearted missing my mom.

  All of a sudden I heard a strange sound. A tweeting singing sound of a bird. One that I had never ever heard before. I mean we lived in the country and had lots of different birds that sang the prettiest songs but this one was one I hadn't heard before.

  It was right above my head.  I happened to be underneath a flowering cherry tree that was just starting to bud.  I heard it again so I stopped doing what I was doing, kind of afraid to move because it was so close and I didn't want to scare it.

  The singing continued on and on.  I couldn't stand it anymore so I slowly looked up and there it was!  A brightly colored bird.  Very vivid colors of blue, red, green and yellow!  I had never ever seen anything like it before in my life!  Well at least not except in a bird book that my mom had gotten me the year before.

  In fact I remembered looking through the book one night  while visiting my mom and dad and pointing it out to her and saying how much I would love to see a bird like that in real life.

  I stood up and was in total awe.  I walked towards that bird and I bet I got within about 5 feet of that bird before I stopped and just stared.  It didn't fly away.  Instead it sat right there letting me look at it intensely and listening to it sing.

  All of a sudden it accurred to me, the whole event, the day it was, the bird it was and all I could do was smile.  I just knew my mom had sent that bird to me for my Mother's Day present to let me know that she loved me and that she was alright.  Right after that, the bird flew away.

  Later on I got that bird book out and looked it up.  It was a Painted Bunting which happens to be no where near habitating in Kentucky.  That's when I was 100% sure that my Mom sent it to me from the grave.