Shasta Memorial, 2010

Dear Family

Well, what a great memorial we had once again this year. You might recall last year I was sure we would run out of signs after doing this for ten years. Surely the angels would have something more important to do than listen to us again. After all the signs we got last year, we went up this year thinking, we will be signed. We will always be signed for as long as we remember our loved ones and pray for them to know our love is still strong and we miss them more than anything.

That was at least my frame of mind going up the road on Friday night May 14th.

Linda and I left at 7:30PM, waiting for the freeways out of the Bay Area to clear. It is a five hour run to Shasta from our house. The plan was get up on our houseboat, have a shooter or glass of wine, take it easy for a half an hour and then go to sleep. About an hour from the lake I got real hungry so we stopped at a Jack-in-the-Box which was only one left open. Slammed a burger and then got back on the road. When we came over the bluff and on to the I-5 Bridge, it was midnight. I ooohed and aahed at the dark surface of the lake under us because the water-line was at the tree-line for the first time in six years. As I took the exit to Holiday Harbor I turned on my brights...........................and there ahead of us was something standing in the road.

We stopped short about 20 feet and found ourselves staring at a yearling deer. It just kept staring at my lights. I looked around to see if its mother was going to come down out of the trees. Or would the yearling scamper off. Nothing happened for about five minutes. By now, Linda and me were in a real stare-down with the smallish baby deer. I thought about going around or honking my horn and also worried about the fact I was stopped dead in the roadway as well as our little buddy. So, I got out and walked to the yearling and shushed it away.

After I got back in the car, I asked Linda, "Sign??? Sign?? Whatdayathink?" Linda smiled and said, "of course it's a sign." Yeah, I thought. Of course it is. The Yearling represented our loved ones after the start of their new lives on the other side. New. Unsure. Not afraid. Without a mother or guide at the very start. Only a desire to make contact with other life. Very symbolic. If I got there 10 minutes earlier or 10 minutes later, we probably see nothing. As it was, perfect timing. Tomorrow night is the memorial, chew on the sign of the Yearling George and see what you come up with.

OK.

We got on our houseboat, I turned all the systems on, we had a cocktail and went to sleep.

In the morning we got up early and went down and got seven dozen minnows and just enough groceries to last us for a night. We pulled out of Holiday Harbor and went steaming down the McCloud and under the bridge and down to the dam. There was debris, lots of debris floating in wide swaths of the lake. As the lake came up, all the wood and twigs laying around on the shoreside.....................just started floating together. Mostly wood and some big logs you had to really be careful of not hitting. Aside from that, the two and half hour ride to Hunter's New Secret Point (hah) was a delightful journey filled with sunshine, a flush forest merged together with the lake at the shoreline, awesome green colors everywhere.......and so much water. Water is life and Shasta was teeming with life.

About half way to our destination, an insanely playful bird started dive-bombing at my face in the window of the captain's seat. He/she flew out sideways and dashed and dunked as fast as a dragonfly. It was darting all around our houseboat. "Hey Linda, come check this out?" We opened the sliding doors in both the front and the back so we could get outside to see what it was all about. The bird was very unique. It had dark purple-black feathers across all of its head, neck, back and wings. It had a bright orange breast. Its wings were really unique in shape. They were real pointy at the tips. Kind of made it look like some kind of jet plane.
The truth is, the Air Force probably patterned there wings on the bird's. Haha.

We just enjoyed the heck out of this darting, swerving creature as it circled our houseboat over and over again.
":Hey Linda, think its a sign?" "Yeah, its a sign!" About that time the bird actually flew into the back of the houseboat and took up a perch on my tackle box. You got to be kidding. Come on, birds don't do that. They don''t hitch-hike. Suddenly the little thing just took off and disappeared. It had to be a swallow I thought to myself because of how small it was. Anyway, that was great.

We reached our spot. We tied up and I started fishing while Linda read a book and took a nap. Over the course of that afternoon and evening I would catch 18 fish. 12 bass and six rainbows. Awesome. After dinner, Linda and I both kind of were avoiding the obvious kind of. As 8PM and a setting sun reached us, I said to her, "Shall we do the memorial?" We laid out our amulets, feathers and pictures. I took the printed copies of all of your messages and names..........and I split them in half. I read Shangrila and called to the angels to come and hear your memories, love and names. Then I cried just a little. I had Linda read "The Spring Angels."

About that time I realized some kind of screech owl was piping over on the hillside. It was a little annoying at first, but then since it was nature, I let its voice merge in with ours. It was a trip to hear the prayer Spring Angels read back to me and to the angels. I had written a prayer about all of us. Not so much about all the people we lost, but about us........those who had been left behind and had to bear the burden of broken-ness that we all share. I only really understood the prayer when Linda read it. I was proud. We need a prayer. All of us. We have had it so hard since losing them. We definitely needed a prayer.

Linda and I drank a little wine and we read each name and message to the angels we imagined had assembled to listen to us. We were joyous at times, remembering each one of you, then deeply sorrowful and choking back tears when we could not bear the accumalated love and grief present in your letters. We cried for our Stacia and fought back a deep wave of depression. After awhile, we were at peace (except for that damn night bird who was still squawking) with the world and the night. Linda went to bed, I fished another two hours and then went to bed.

In the morning, we had some cereal, showered and washed up. Then, we stepped out into the beautiful sun shining from behind the houseboat. As we stood on the back, that playful, small bird popped up out of thin air and started diving at us and flying all around the boat. Then it actually landed on the rail in front of us and just sat there with us. No shit! Suddenly it screeched a few times, and all of a sudden my chest swelled up as I realized this sucker had actually stayed with us all day before, all night and was now here to say, "Hey George, you asked for signs, what better sign can you have than the fact I (an angel) had stayed with you all night and heard all your prayers. I am the Spring Angel.

And with that in my mind and a huge smile on my face, she took off and flew away.

She was so beautiful, our little Spring Angel. There for the memorial, and then whoosh, off to heaven she went.

I love you guys so much
George

P.S. A friend identified the bird for me. It was a barn swallow.