My Dad Looks Good in Black

Aw-kah-awh ... I know it was him. He loved the woods, he loved being in the woods, in the out-of-doors, a running stream brought peace to his eyes. He loved the woods, but this morning he was on the beach, just after dawn, dressed in black. I know,(my oldest sister rolls her eyes) this ought to be entitled, Why Primitive People believed in Spirits, Part Six, but my father was on the beach perched on a little mound of sand watching as I slogged by in the morning light. All the seagulls flew off as I approached, flew off for fear or to find breakfast, I do not know, but the single crow amongst them stayed put, hunched a little as I came nearer and then said,
"Aw-kah-awh"
"Hi, Pop." I replied. He made a little nodding motion as I went by.

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Some of you know this story and some don't, some have been told this story several times and have either forgotten it or they prefer to have it forgotten, but for those who have never been told the story, here it is, to be believed or not, remembered or not.

Outside our seventh floor apartment windows in New York is a ravine full of brush and trees. It is very uncitylike, a little hidden valley populated by chickadees all winter and wrens, starlings and nuthatches all summer. (Sigh) Yes, there are a lot of very city-ish pigeons, but on a happier note, they have attracted the occasional red-winged hawk and a falcon or two, who have happily lunched on squab for a day or so before moving on to greater heights in the Heights.

There are blue-jays, yelling at the feral cats who are just doing their job of de-ratting the area and lots of squirrels, both gray and the rarer, coal black variety. No, the coal black ones are not rats, they are squirrels. I did think a few years ago that I might have discovered a hybrid in our little ravine, but I have since seen them up in Ft. Tryon Park. Once, I saw a large parrot, obviously lost out of someone's window. He hung around for a couple of days and then disappeared. And there was the afternoon of the owl. He only stayed until nightfall.

The point of all this population reporting is to show that I do a lot of looking out my windows at the lifeforms and that I have never seen a crow. Except once.
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There had been a message waiting for us when we had gotten home late that Friday night. Pop had struggled his last battle. There was too much, there was too little. They had tried removing the breathing tube, it was causing problems, but without it, he was gone in moment or two.

I didn't sleep much, in and out of dreams, like diving into waves, going under, feeling the power pass and surfacing in safety. About six am, before any real light has begun to penentrate the ravine, I got up and washed my face, then went to my chest-of-drawers for a shirt. At first, I only heard a movement, only saw a shadow, but then looking closer, I saw the crow sitting on the nearest branch to my window. He looked right at me.
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Our family supposedly arrived in Virginia about the same time as John Smith, before the Pilgrims had packed their bags. I've been sorting through the various records and may have found the "crossing ancestor'', a nice fellow from a fairly large family in England, but there has always been a certain reverence for the Native American in our family. My father's mother always seemed drawn to Indian lore and one of my sisters was nearly obsessed by the idea that she was an Indian of some sort, but then people are interested in all sorts of things and little girls get obsessed, possessed with ideas great and small. And too, never in his life did my father mention any kind of spiritual connection with anything beyond his father's Methodism and the songs of Tennessee Ernie Ford. But... he did so love the woods.
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The crow jumped to the window sill and cocked his head the way birds do when they want to really see something. He strolled a few steps then used one flap to get back onto the branch.
"Aw-kah-awh" It said.
"Goodbye, Pop,"I said,"Thanks for coming by."
And off he flew.
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There are crows in Fort Tryon Park, they perch high up on the Cloisters, and there are crows in the trees just down the street by the subway station. They make a racket everytime they spot a wandering cat, but not in our ravine and not on my window sill, not before that morning and none since.

Okay,you say, your dad looks good in black, but how do you know it was him this morning?
Easy, I say, I recognized the accent.

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And today was the day he married my mother, sixty seven or so years ago.