TheBanyanTree: The Eagle Has Landed

[Monique Colver]

Or, to be a bit more precise, been rediscovered. The stuffed eagle was one
of Stew's stuffed animals when he was a little kid. I'd heard stories about
the stuffed eagle. When Stew was a kid, he and his parents took a cruise to
Alaska, accompanied by said eagle. When they were out of the room the eagle
stayed behind, and the room steward would go into the room and move him.
Each time they returned to the room, Stew would look for the eagle, always
finding it in a different, and usually unexpected, place.

Ken and Roberta were looking for Christmas lights in the garage, I'm not
sure why, and instead found a box of the old stuffed animals, including the
eagle. When Roberta told me this on the phone her voice broke, and I told
her I'd heard about the eagle, and we talked about the cruise and the eagle.
They're bringing me most of Stew's collection of bears next week, but she's
keeping the ones they just found, and keeping a few of the black bears.

It's the little things, we agreed, that pop up out of nowhere and smack us,
the momentum of our grief leaving us dizzy and weary.

We talked about how Stew would insist we go on with our lives and be happy,
and how stubborn he was. She said, facetiously, she didn't know where he
might have gotten that trait from, and I told her it must be from her side
of the family, because it certainly wasn't mine.

We talked about how she'd told someone that they were coming up next weekend
for so we can all take Stew's ashes out to the Sound. Ken and Roberta,
Margee, Stew's sister, and her husband Ed, and me and Andrew. The someone
she was talking to said, "I thought you only had one daughter."

"No, we have two."

It is so hard for her sometimes, when the little things pop up and remind
her of what she's missing, of the little boy who lived for only 37 years,
and I try to tell her that we'll both be okay. She says it too, that we'll
be okay. I was so glad they found the eagle, I know it meant a lot to them.
It meant a lot to me, and I'd only heard of it. We're all continuing on this
journey of loss.

M