Ravens Join the Healing Parade

Two swallowtail butterflies are again fluttering in my backyard, bringing me cheer for about the 20th year in a row.

It remains a mystery whether the same pair of butterflies, now deep into old age, return year after year to frolic in my yard (unlikely) or if two new butterflies emerge fresh from caterpillar larva every season, tune their GPS antennae to my house and arrive just the way their ancestors have done for decades. Also unlikely.

My old friend Pat knows of my swallowtail twins and he once quietly, gravely, told me the butterflies were messengers from my parents. Huh?

He said it was not uncommon that contact with lost loved ones be conveyed through birds, broken glass, lost coins or rainbows. “But butterflies,” he said, “are the top choice.”

Pat Walsh is Irish to the bone, clear-headed, an excellent drinker and as touchy-feely as a Hemi engine. But can it possibly be true that butterflies are trying to communicate with us?

Let us pause, take a deep breath, and consider my wife.

She was struck by a series of complicated medical problems that brought roughly 20 years of pain to her shoulders and neck. Very roughly. Along with pills of every sort she’s had countless encounters with doctors, lawyers, nurses, physical therapists, workers’ compers, chiropractors, frauds, quacks, masseuses and healers.

Amid the complications, unexpected intruders joined her healing journey: Ravens.

Scant weeks after her woes kicked in ravens began crowding her life. Their presence was obvious but their purpose was puzzling. What did they want? What were they trying to tell her?

Mornings a pair of ravens began patrolling the short brick pathway from the front porch to the sidewalk, sometimes striding back and forth, otherwise simply staring at her. Mysterious encounters with ravens were unprecedented in her life.

Approaching our offices another pair waited on the cement blocks on either side of the steps, like lions astride the marble staircase at New York’s Public Library. The birds, close enough to touch, chattered at her as she mounted the steps.

There was a single skylight in the second floor office of lawyer Bert Schlosser. With creepy regularity a raven, sometimes two, would clamber atop the skylight when she came into his office, their images clouded but unmistakable through the translucent rectangle. They strutted on boney toes with horny claws and the clattering noise, sometimes loud enough to awaken Bert, seemed ominous.

What did they want? What were they trying to tell her?

Ravens lined the edge of the roof across the street. She watched them from a second floor window, and maybe the birds watched her. They seemed to monitor her entering and exiting, flapping off when she got to her car.

Physical pain interfered with both work and fun. Even the car she drove, a spirited little Miata convertible, tortured her with its rough, jouncy ride. A local lawyer and concerned friend, Ann Moorman, decided to buy a new car and essentially gave away her used Cadillac.

The car’s soft, limo-like ride provided SS Queen Mary comfort on long trips, but provoked humorous inquiries from family members amused at our pretentious new wheels. Our response was to pose for a family photo in outfits befitting our cool car.

Daughter and wife wore exquisite mink wraps and Hollywood sunglasses; the young lad dazzled in a pink-on-pink tuxedo jacket. I wore a green-yellow-red plaid wool sport coat.

Professional lawyer and amateur photographer Dan Haehl snapped a shot of us in front of our house, draped about the hood of the Caddy, looking about as impressive as local Burke Hill-billies. We took the film to Triple S, got back 5x7 prints and sent copies to family members.

Weeks later my wife spotted a tiny detail. High in the photo’s bright clear sky, hundreds of feet distant, is the unmistakable image of a single spread-winged raven dead-center above her head.

Was it all a message from the Corvid Gods (unlikely) or a long-running series of dramatic, coincidental, fragmentary, incidents signifying nothing? (Also unlikely.)

If we’d gritted our teeth and concentrated, or if we’d smoked hashish and dreamed the dreams of ravens we might have learned their secrets to unlocking pain, unless the ravens were instead encouraging her to jump off the Noyo Bridge.

And because we ignored the birds, the birds abandoned us. Or else the exhausted ravens turned the assignment over to swallowtail butterflies in our back yard.

What do the butterflies want? What are they trying to tell me?