thoughts on my walk i
I've gotten a habit lately of taking walks while the sun is setting, just site-seeing different areas within 30 minutes of my neighbourhood, kind of filling out the map in my brain piece by piece.
Today, while I was passing by a church heading northbound, a cardinal landed right in front of me perched up on the front fence. I tried to follow it slowly, and it flew up top one of the lower roofs and just watched me. I kept my eyes on it the whole time I was slowly walking away, as it did to me.
The reason this was noteable enough for me to write about actually ties back into my thoughts on superstitions in an odd way.
I lost my grandfather coming up on 5 years ago now. There's a few myths, superstitions, whatever you want to call them around deaths in Greek culture. One is that the soul of a recently deceased person travels the earth for 40 days before finally laying to rest, sort of as a way to tie up loose ends and say goodbye from beyond. In this time you may find hints of them in places you wouldn't expect, like in certain ways a leaf will fall when you walk, or an animal that shows up when you're feeling the pain most. Something like, say, a cardinal.
In those 40 days back then, a single cardinal tended to hang around our house, or fly by while walking around, almost like saying a little greeting, letting us know that he was still with us, just for a little while longer.
Even though the time has passed so quick and it's been so long since then, every time I see a cardinal that lingers around me, I can't help but think he's with me, in some shape or form. Little comforts, little comforts.