A friend of mine lost her mother about one month after I lost mine.
2022 has been a hell of a year for both of us.
As we were unfolding both in our grief and telling each other about what we were going through, we were discussing the kind of messages that we received after our mothers passing.
For me, on a particular hard day, where I had to handle yet again an administrative item after her passing, I was so overwhelmed by the amount of papers I had to fill out, ask, receive, give to an other office, etc... that I felt powerless and angry at everything because it just didn't felt right that, in the mids of having to deal with the loss and the grief, I had also to put up with all this administrative crap (sorry, but it just is really a bunch of crap!). Coming home, I look out the window of our balcony and there was a beautiful butterfly, really big and that I've never seen before on our latitudes. Here, butterflies just aren't that big. There she was, and sat on a stool for quite some time, giving me the time to take a picture of her. I felt my mother giving me this little present in butterfly form, reminding me that she wasn't that far away and that, even if I didn't felt that way, everything was ok and was going to be ok.
My friend had a similar story.
On her mothers death bed, they saw a little Black Redstart (Rouge-queue noir, in french) outside of the window.
Both her mother and her are quite knowledgable about birds, and they where pretty sure to never have seen one before. This in itself was already a beautiful event and something to remember for sure. But it gets better.
After her mother passing, my friend begun to see a Black Redstart each day from her home window. Each day, she's receiving a little gift from the universe, remembering that her mother is still near her, just in another form.
Of course, this drawing is a tribute to this story but how it came to life has magic (the magic of life that is, not the Harry Potter kind of magic, although I love that magic too :)) written all over it as well!
My friends birthday is in September, and I was trying to find a nice gift for her.
I was sitting on a balcony and thinking about her and what could be a perfect gift considering all she went through this year.
As I sat there, I heard a nice chirping that I've never heard before, but I couldn't see the bird that was emitting it. But I messaged my friend, because this sound had made me remember her story and I wanted to ask her the name of the bird since I had forgotten it. And so the idea for this drawing came to life.
But, again, it gets better than that! Do you know which kind of bird it was that chirped near my balcony that day? It was a little Black Redstart.
Can you imagine the goosebumps I felt when discovering it?
And this is the story of how "Messages from a Black Redstart" came to life!
Shop it here
I love these stories, because even though we don't have the ability to see the loved ones that went away anymore, it seems that they still are near us, protecting us. They never really went away, they just transformed into another form.
Because, they will always stay by our side, until it's time to see them, again.