My whippoorwill song... with grasshopper grace notes and butterfly benediction

In the twilight, I miss the sound of the whippoorwill’s song as the faint taste of loss and leaving lingers in my soul. This season, the crossing over from summer into fall, always brings a melancholy that is echoed in that shy bird’s song. As a child we would sit on the porch listening to whippoorwills sing from the woods that edged the pasture. Plaintive, sweet, floating over the heavy summer evening air, he called us home as darkness settled over the land. Gone now from the fields around us, I hope the whippoorwill has found refuge from the mad rush of development in the hills and hollows farther up the mountains. A world without the whippoorwill’s song would be sadly lacking. I sit on my soul’s porch listening to the whippoorwill song in my heart remembering my seasons of good by saying.
School’s beginning was always bittersweet for me as our children crossed another hurdle in the race to grow up. Kindergarten, first grade, first bus ride, middle school, high school, first car, driving off to college, first child to leave home, last child to leave home (the middle child gets a free pass)... all in the fall when the tangy smell of approaching autumn floated through the early morning air. I celebrated their coming of age, their growing into accountability, the sight of their individual personhood, the faint outlines of the grownups they would become emerging from their childhood. And as I celebrated, I mourned the loss of my babies... makes no sense does it?
In the luminous light of summer not yet autumn, I see the ones I have loved who have left this world, loved ones who no longer can come when I call. As I cut grass today on the farm, their faces rested in my heart’s memory and I called them by name. Grandparents, father, sister, husband, friends... their presence in my life was a gift and I honor them by remembering. The day is crisp and clear like my memories and I rest between laughter and tears.
I look down and see my shirt covered with grasshoppers of all sizes and colors, refugees from the mower who have found safety on me. Brown long legged ones, small bright green ones, brown and orange ones... crunchy legs climbing up my shirt towards my face, jumping away when I lift my hand to touch them. As a child I caught and raised grasshoppers in gallon jar terrariums, feeding them until their skins split like a snake as they outgrew their body covering. They fascinated me, and in them I caught my first glimpse of the transformation that comes with growth.
A cloud of butterflies suddenly surround me on the mower up by the high barn. I turn the mower off and sit, soul singing at this beautiful symbol of resurrection. Black and blue butterflies, sitting on the mower, lighting on my arms, resting in the clover... I think God just reached down and tapped my soul on the shoulder. Words come to mind and heart... “Remember to whom you belong. Remember there is more to life than death. Rest in the beauty that surrounds you and give thanks for all that has been and all that is yet to be.”
Tonight Michael and I drove the tractor and the mower down to the barn under the light of a full moon. The last few stragglers of fireflies glowed here and there as I meandered down the hill. Light enough for the journey...beautiful light... beginnings and endings illuminated, glowing with memories and possibilities. It is more than enough. Thanks be to God.