Buster

Buster

This morning, outside with my coffee, I looked for Buster.

Buster was a gold finch that Chris and I would see at our feeder regularly, usually as we sat at the kitchen table over toast and coffee.  After we bought a house in Champaign in the summer of 2006, we were happy to populate our new backyard with feeders, creating our own bird sanctuary.  I was so thankful to finally gain outdoor space.  There is a special kind of peace that comes from watching birds.

It was Chris’s notion to name the gold finch Buster. It was a strange choice – not particularly unique or clever – but it fit the pert little bird. Naturally, there were probably many Busters. Gold finches certainly aren’t rare in the Midwest in summer.  Many visited our kitchen window, but Chris was certain he knew which one was Buster. Even the next year, with the return of spring, Chris called out one day, “Buster’s back!”  And who knows?  Maybe Buster really did come back each year.

But we didn’t get many years at that house to find out.  Less than two years later, Chris died suddenly, with no warning, of cardiac arrest. My shock was paralyzing, my panic attacks were debilitating, my grief ever-present.  But still, the birds came, and family members would help me with the seemingly silly task of refilling feeders.  Living much of the next few months at my parents’ home in Kansas, I would spend much time just gazing out their dining room window at their own feeders – orioles, brown thrashers, mourning doves, sparrows, finches.  Again, there is a special kind of peace that comes from watching birds.

But there was no Buster.  And before the next summer, I had sold the house in Champaign.

Now, a dozen years after Chris’s death, my life has seen much change.  I have moved, met new people, married again, started and ended a career, started a business, and even returned to teaching.  I have moved into another new home, and I have set up my feeders again. I have not lived where I can easily have a bird sanctuary since Champaign, so my return to the peace of birds is long overdue.  Especially now, as our world plummets into the pandemic and finds us more and more isolated from each other, the birds offer us an easy grace and attention to the present. Much like Chris offered those of us who knew and loved him. Had he lived to see this time, he would have been calm and steady, perhaps even cracking several wry jokes about the situation. And he would have looked for Buster again this spring.

So, as I sat outside this morning, on the anniversary of Chris’s death, I looked for Buster.  And wouldn’t you know, not one but three gold finches flew right up and started sparring around the feeder.  Their insistent tee-yees sounded throughout the yard, making me smile.  So small and so mighty.  Who knows which one was Buster, but I’m sure Chris would have known him immediately.

   

Choosing the Better Days

Despite the current chaos, there has been much inspirational talk about how we will get through this pandemic. It’s the ever-too-chipper “We are all in this together”-speak. It’s aiming to be earnest and sometimes comforting and even fairly true.  We will “get through this,” just as everything is something that must be “gotten through,” one way or another.  Even with the loss of numerous lives, there will be another side of this crisis. It will be “gotten to,” but only by some, in some way, for some purpose, if perhaps only to disappear back into another surge of this virus.  

But let’s be truthful: There is no return to the life we knew before.  We won’t simply “get through this” and land back where everything left off.  We will have to press start to a whole new game. It will take some heroic action to prepare to learn the rules at that point, if there will even be any. That will take a hard choice and a lot of work.

My own sadness ebbs and flows. I envy those who are more positive and able to rest in the inspiration of each new day. They may be delusional, but they seem to have hope. I envy the faithful, the helpers, the heroes.  I envy the ways in which people can seek purpose and renewal while our world continues to cripple itself.  And it is crippling itself fast and furiously.  People stridently rebel against social distancing guidelines, parade to public spaces as though nothing has changed, and ignore good habits that respect the health of others.  On my darkest days, I want to give up and believe that we deserve ever horror that is heading for us. Despite my desire to be a hero, I can feel a villainy fueling my anger and despair. (What follows is a snapshot of that; consider yourself warned.)

To witness humans at their worst -- hoarding food and household goods, ignoring government warnings about safe practices, claiming that the virus is a hoax, wishing for the deaths of others, or even just whining about how hard it is to stay in their safe, warm homes – it’s all enough to make me wonder why we are worth saving at all.  Why strive to motivate humans to be good or decent people if it’s never going to be possible anyway? If we cannot make people follow rules that will save lives, then maybe all the guns should just keep coming freely.  Maybe we should just all be able to smoke, drink, and self-medicate with anything we want. If we don’t really care about life – and if we only like to pretend that we care -- then what garbage we really are. None of us then truly care for a greater good or a sense of duty to others.  It’s all a ruse. We are in it for ourselves and ourselves alone.  In this way, we have always been socially distancing, disconnecting ourselves from others so we can simply watch out for number one. 

But as I said, this is where my mind goes on the darkest days. And I know that the darkest days are also the most distorted ones.

Still, on these days, I have a true understanding of super villains.  I can see why we have such amazing “big bads” in pop culture and why we actually love them.  If I had my own origin story as a villain, then this glimpse into human nature during the pandemic would be its catalyst. It seems that most of our comic book villains emerge from severe disillusionment with or disconnection from humanity.  They may be bullied, abused, punished (with or without cause), or ensnared by human deception. They may be directly injured as a result of human greed or malice.  Whatever the case, the most intriguing villains reflect our own worst sins as a species.

It’s much harder to be a hero.  It is so much harder to look on all the crap that humans dish out and decide you are still going to care for them. To choose to be the hero, you must choose to love others, and that is never the easiest choice.  No matter what our culture makes us think, loving others and connecting to others is always the harder option. 

In the movie Wonder Woman, there’s a key scene where Diana is savagely tempted by Ares to destroy humans, given their evident corruption.  She considers it.  She should, right? Countless superheroes are consistently maligned by the very humans they seek to help – they are distrusted and protested. Why not kill them? Still, a real hero loves and helps.  Diana chooses love, despite all her grief and rage, and she chooses to help humankind. I ain’t Wonder Woman, obviously, but I’d like to hope that I could make that choice, that I can make that choice

On my better days, when I look around and focus, I do see the people who are here helping, for better or worse. They are trying to share resources with neighbors, make masks, and check on others. They are sharing humor and good cheer.   There are heroic humans who are making that choice to do the right thing, despite so many who are not.  We can’t save everyone, maybe not even ourselves, but we can choose love regardless.   

So, maybe I will and can choose love and choose humans yet.  I will at least, for now, choose my better days, and not become my darkest.