Hummingbirds

“When I found out my Oma passed away this year, I saw a hummingbird.

This familiar omen flooded me with the realization that all those years of her being critical and disaproving were years filled with love. She wanted us to be safe and well, accepted and happy. She was trying to teach us every step of the way. To be good. To be great.

Of course she would have rather been the Oma that was all kind words, card games and cookies – but she chose to love us instead, the best way she knew how, by telling us what nobody else would bear the burden to say.

She wasn’t always right but she always did her best. She always put that love above being liked. She may have loved me more than most in life ever have.

We abandoned her for it.

I see it passed down generations.

A gift and the price we pay for it.

Because we love you, we will accept the cost of saying what we feel needs to be said for you to live better even if you treat us worse. We will accept the humiliation of not succeeding or being right for the endeavor.

Her life was beautiful. Of Service to so many. True kindness. True Love.
Doesn’t always feel good, doesn’t tell you what you want to hear.
It holds Truth in balance with Love.
She never would have bothered to say any of it without a greater point and higher purpose.
Now in a world that whispers criticisms shrouded from the ones who could use them, so doped up on validation it’s degrading, I see how precious and rare her love truly is.

Bless you Oma,
I’m so sorry that it didn’t reach me in time
That I didn’t reach you in time
I feel you with me every day
You have certainly blessed me, too.
I will honour these blessings always.

Every time I press a plant, I feel you showing me how.
Every time I write a poem, I feel you being proud.”

-X