My father was a fisherman. His hobby was making his own fishing tackle, particularly flies. He made them from various materials, including red feathers. The feathers tended to cling to clothing and seemed to folow him everywhere he went. It became a family joke - we could tell where he had been by following the trail of red feathers.
After Dad died, those feathers were a painful reminder, so we cleaned out his room and were careful to get rid of all the red feathers. It was the first week after his death that we witnessed the first "reminder." Mom and I were at an office in downtown Detroit, taking care of some of his business, when she opened her purse to find a red feather in among some papers she pulled out. It was upsetting, and we were mystified as to how one could have gotten in to her purse, of all places.
A summer passed, Dad's death was still fresh on our minds, but the red feathers were all but forgotten until I went back to school in the fall. I walked in to the classroom one morning, and as I sat my books down, a red feather flew from the top of me desk and floated down to land on my books. I ran out of the classroom and Mom had to come and take me home.
There were a few other instances of the feathers appearing in strange places, with no explanation of how they could've gotten there. Once during a Thanksgiving dinner, we found one on the table. One turned up inside a Christmas gift for Mom. We tried to think of these as "reminder" from my Dad, so that we don't forget him. I hope he knows we never will.
(This was my first published story, Detroit Free Press, Oct., 1982.)
Beautifully written and the feeling it evokes is one we can relate to regarding our losses...The feather is such a sweet reminder and one you have shared so eloquently with us...nice work!! sue
ReplyDeleteThe first red feather appeared on the day we buried our Dad. My sister and I were sitting on Grammas front porch and a red feather came on the wind and drifted to lay at our feet. We laughed and cried. Susan
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