Nature weekend

Thanks again for all of your support -- it means a lot.  We are still missing Brian immensely.  I buried him on Friday after work.  I scratched his head -- something he never let me do when he was alive -- and thought about the good times we had together.  My tears fell on him, and I was thinking how wonderful it would be if they had some sort of magical power that could restore him to life.  Of course, nothing happened, but I pulled out some of his lovely blue feathers and have them safe in a drawer.  He's now resting in the back yard, along with the rest of the budgies who've left us over the years.  Lenny, Ethel, Jeff Saturday, and Daphne.

Until this point in the day, I had not cried and was able to look back at pictures and videos of him fondly.  I think about him almost constantly, but it makes me happy to remember how wonderful he was and how lucky we were to have as much time with him as we did.  I know I shouldn't but I keep thinking of different "what ifs" -- it's amazing to think how decisions made nearly a decade earlier were ultimately instrumental in what happened.  For example, if I'd taken a different job in 2002, I probably wouldn't have been home until much later, sparing his life.  Or, if thugs hadn't broken into our house in 2005, we wouldn't have moved, which means we wouldn't have had room for Rocky (though we would have had room for Brian), and he'd still be alive.  It's just interesting how seemingly unrelated events can conspire against me.

We decided to try to spend much of the weekend in nature, as that always helps to raise our spirits.  We went to one of Thomas's favorite places, where there are lots of natural springs.  It was peaceful:

Some of the springs:

And we even saw a few cedar waxwings, Thomas's favorite wild bird:

We both felt much better.  Thomas is adamant that we can't add any more birds to our house.  Maybe when we move and the set up is different.  We have no plans to move.  I'm not sure if he'll still feel this way once he can process more of his grief.  In any way, it's way too early for us to think about adding anyone else.  Of course, I had three different people ask me if we'd take their special-needs birds since Brian died.  I had to turn them all down.

I had figured that our bird-bath activity would mostly be done for the year (it certainly will be soon once we turn off the outside water and close down the bird bath for the year) so it was a pleasant surprise to see a dark-eyed junco bathing this morning:

We'll definitely get out hiking some more this holiday weekend.  Nature really helps heal us.