[39] The Logic of Mockingbirds, Kate Flannery

I once chased a mockingbird’s song, my musician’s ear trying to locate pitch and repeat and pattern. Wanting a familiar tune to return and complete itself. But I became lost in the purposeful trilling of the bird, the lyric warbling, the soft thrums, the clipped calls. Nothing repeated. Non-sequitur wandering in after non-sequitur. And then I remembered the time when I realized that all the decisions for my mother were mine. I listened for the soothing words I wanted to hear from her doctor, for clear directions I needed to hear from her hospice nurses, for some direction, clearly spoken by my mother, that would tell me what I should do. And as I sat down on the worn, wooden chair on her back patio that evening, listening to the breeze that had blown into the sheltered area along with the shade and the scent of summer flowers, I heard the mockingbird sing again.