More on Love & Sorrow (a must read)

[Guest guest]

Forwarded by Ellie:

Subject: More on Love & Sorrow

[sweet story in my mailbox today I wanted to share. el]

Suzy Star wrote:

Dear ones,

I recently sent an email showing a swallow and his mate that was a touching example of love that birds can show for one another.

One of my contacts has a website, yeshallknowthetruth@... who post my messages. Usually I am so busy that I don't take the time to look at the website but tonight I did and I noticed there were comments posted on this posting so I read them.

One of the members of the group had a different opinion or interpretation of the comments that accompanied my posting. Without going into detail, I want to share a story with you about an experience I had that re-enforces the comments that accompanied my posting.

" When I first moved to WA in 1987 from Hawaii, my husband and I purchased a farm in Eatonville, WA. It had a beautiful new barn where we kept our animals. I could write a whole book about the beautiful experiences I had with our animals, but one of the incidents that occurred that relates to this posting is the one I will share with you now.

In the following spring of our move, the barn swallows came and one of them built a nest in the rafters of the main section of the barn. They found some hair from the tail of our pony and wove it into their nest. I had a lawn chair positioned outside of the barn entrance and one of my favorite pastimes was to sit in this chair and interact with my various animals.

The barn swallows were very protective of their nests and would swoop down and dive bomb our cats so they would not come too near the barn and disturb their mates who by this time were sitting on their eggs.

One swallow in particular seemed to know that I was observing them and not intending to harm or disrupt them in any way, so he would fly toward me when I would take my seat and hover in front of me for a few minutes before resuming his task of feeding his mate.

One day, I came out to take up my observing post and a strange stillness permeated the area. I noticed something hanging from the nest and on closer inspection noticed his mate who had somehow wrapped those horse hairs around her neck and hanged herself. Her mate was sitting on the rafters next to her with his head held low, obviously mourning her death.

My husband and I climbed up on a ladder, cut her loose and took her and buried her in our yard. Her mate followed us and watched as we put her in a little grave and marked it with some flowers. After we left the grave, he flew down to it and took one of the little flowers in his mouth and flew back to his nest and placed the flower inside.

We didn't see him for a few days after that but one day he returned with a new mate and they cleaned out the nest and he again took up the vigil while she sat on a new batch of eggs. When those babies hatched they took great pride in showing us how they taught their new little ones to fly.

Everyday when I would take up my watching post, they would parade those babies out on the wire next to their nest and allow us to watch as they taught them to fly. He would come and hover in front of me as if to thank me for my presence and show off his new family. "

Now don't tell me that birds don't have a consciousness and an awareness of our mutual love for them.

I am sure there are many of you out there that could share similar stories and if you care to, I would love to hear them.

Love, blessings & peace, Suzy Star

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