Then He Arrived
- Leah Brown
- Jun 4
- 3 min read
For the past several weeks, I have had breakfast with a bluebird.
He arrives just as I sit down to eat, lands on the wind chimes engraved with my dead dog’s name, turns toward the screen door, cocks his head, and begins to sing. Sometimes a sweet, whispery chatter, as if he is wishing me a good morning; other times, a rapid chirp-chirp-chirp, as if to scold me for lingering too long over my Barry’s Breakfast Tea.
Sometime between my last bite of toast and swallow of tea, my highly acrobatic songbird flies off, performing dizzying loops in pursuit of insects.
After he leaves, I stare at the wind chimes for a few moments, and I don't feel that aching sadness, the loneliness I always feel when someone I love leaves.
I'm left with a quiet joy.
After my divorce and my dog’s death, breakfast became a solitary affair. Bleary eyes over the breakfast table, morning chatter over homemade muffins, Molly poised for any spills, mad dashes to locate missing keys, glasses, gym bags, were spectral echoes of a life since passed. Life, and breakfast, post-divorce, was eerily silent.
Groundhog days. Two eggs with toast. A cuppa Irish breakfast. A kitchen steeped in silence. No warm, steady friend curled at my feet.
Kevin was gone.
My kids were grown.
Molly was dead.
Then he arrived.
An unexpected guest brings with it a certain curiosity. What sort of bird was this tiny acrobat who appeared each morning, sang to me through the screen door, and vanished again into the Virginia sky?
Normally, this is where I would tell you I visited my local library and thumbed through a dog-eared bird-spotting guide until I could confidently identify my bluebird, but I am a single woman of a certain age. I bought myself a bird-spotting guide at the same time I bought a housecoat and slippers.
It didn’t take me long to determine that my finely flocked friend was a Virginia Tree Swallow. With his starched white chest, ruffled neck, and iridescent cobalt wings fitting him like a vest, he reminds me of Beau Brummel, the nineteenth-century dandy known for his flamboyant fashion. The image of me in my housecoat sitting across the table from a foppish crooner brings me private delight.
I soon learned that the tree swallow is one of the first harbingers of Spring. Their arrival symbolizes new beginnings, hope, good luck, and the end of winter.
My mother went through her own season of loss and silence. Divorced. A single mother—again. She sought solace in nature and developed a deep belief that encounters with wildlife are never random. They are spiritual signs, omens, or guides meant to lead you to enlightenment. Sometimes I wonder what she would think of my bluebird.
The Powhatan and Monocan tribes associated the Tree Swallow with industriousness, personal renewal, and the return of life. Other tribes, like the Hopi, believed tree swallows were selfless allies and intermediaries to the spirit realm. There is a Hopi legend about a tree swallow stealing fire from the sun to keep humans warm.
I do not know if my new breakfast companion would steal fire from the sun to keep me warm. I am not sure if he is the arbitrator between me and the astral plane. I do not know what he would be negotiating on my behalf.
What do I know: I’ve become strangely relieved he hasn’t abandoned me. He paid me his first call a month ago, and he hasn’t missed a morning since (far more reliable than a dating app match).
I hear the windchimes before the song. A gentle tinkling carried on the breeze. I always look, half-expecting to see Molly chasing a bird, rolling on her back in the grass, lifting her heart-shaped nose to catch a stray breeze, her silky white fur fluttering.
I told a friend about Beau Brummel, the blue-vested, insect-hunting, wind-chime-perching tree swallow.
“I think he was sent from above,” I said.
“He’s a bird,” she intoned. “What other direction would he arrive from?”
Whether another person shares your belief isn’t really the point. The point is that every morning, instead of being reminded only of loss and loneliness, I am reminded of connection.
Perhaps faith isn’t always affirmed in the extraordinary, but in the ordinary we learn to see as extraordinary.
An essay about bird, grief, healing, breakfast, women, divorce, empty nest.
I really enjoyed this. The bird was charming, but what resonated most was the way you described the quiet after divorce and loss. The image of him showing up every morning felt like a reminder that companionship can appear in unexpected forms. Thank you for sharing this.