Fair Feathered Friends

If I Flee on Mornings Wings ~ Fernando Ortega

If to Heaven's heights I fly
You are still beside me,
Or in death's dark shadows lie,
You will stay close by me.
If I flee on morning wings
Far across the gray sea,
Even there Your hand will lead,
Your right hand will guide me.

Fair Feathered Friends


A poor play on words perhaps … I know.

Fair weathered friends, on the other hand… are those ones who are there for you if you don’t expect too much from them... or if you give what they need when they need it (this can be hit or miss) or any unknown list of requirements you weren’t given a handout for… Still, a friend is a friend no matter the hoops each requires we jump through. I cannot imagine that I haven't been fair-weathered myself at some time or another in my life. I think we each get lost in the process at times and it happens.

I like weathered friends best - you know, ones who have made it through the storms (yours or theirs) and are still present on the other side of the black clouds... like a peely painted sturdy strong barn door - still protecting, guarding, and opening... and welcoming you inside.

Anyway... I am speaking of friends of another color … well… even more so of a different species.
“Pets” we call them - cause we pet them or we especially care for them and indulge them … making them “pet” or specific… I don’t know. I just know there are those who “get” pets and those who don’t. It’s okay either way. We can’t and shouldn’t all have green hair either. I "get" pets and when a pet dies I cannot say I equate it with the loss of a child as some do (and for them perhaps it is that) - for me it is a different grief, but a grief still.

We have had any number and variety of pets through the decades. It is almost an unwritten requirement of the American Home Education culture to teach responsibility or some such societal expectation by having pets. Our many pets over the years were absorbed into our family because of simple desire, love-at-first-sight, rescue, or even by surprise.
The surprise pets may have been the best ever: our Duck Family.

Lyle, Dolly, Special Ed, Trouble, Stubby, Sinker, Weena-Ballerina (THE original Blue Eyed Duck), and Pat … and then, Grand Ducklings Crash and Splash.

Splash stands alone as we just lost dear old-timer Sinker this week to natural causes. He was the last of the original clan of eight wonderful, whimsical, always-make-you-smile Duck Family. I can openly tell you that as we scooped him up for his burial, he looked much like a rubber chicken all straight and stretched ~ even in death this friend gave us a smile.

Some of our ducks met horrific deaths to raccoon raids, car strikes, and even disease. We cried and got mad, frustrated, and so on. This time it was different - and perhaps that is why the grief is so very still and small and quiet. There was no emergency vet visit this time and no sad goodbye in a sterile room. This was quick and not completely unexpected. And it is okay.

Friends - real life friends, online friends, and pets ... all so different, yet those lil birds get into our hearts and nest there and when they go - that empty nest aches until we are again blessed with new residents. We are never quite the same as we are molded and reshaped by our experiences with them flying in and out of our lives ...

I am so thankful for all my friends ~ everywhere ~ every kind.

joy in the journey,

katey~D

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. ~ Proverbs 18:24

PS: I am really looking forward to PRINCE CASPIAN May 16th - the next in the Chronicles of Narnia (movie) series

...and now for some completely UNrelated art! This is a mixed media T-shirt in my ETSY shop - created from my Cat Scream series of paintings.

http://www.blueyeduckstudios.etsy.com/