The Birds

One of my fondest, if creepiest, childhood memories involves the freezer in the basement and birds.

Mom was a birder. Although I only remember her actually watching birds once she and Daddy moved out to The Farm (when I was 21), I knew she was into birding long before that. She talked about birds she had seen, birds she wanted to identify. Plus, she had the books, Audubon's and Petersen's guides.

And every now and then, when Mom sent me downstairs to get some hamburger or steaks for dinner, I would find a frozen bird of some sort in the door of the freezer. Poor little thing, lying on its back, claws sticking straight up, eyes clouded over. Cold. Dead.

Of course I would pick it up, marvel at how light it was, feel its cold feathers against my hands, feel a little sadness for its death.

And wonder what the hell was up with my Mom.

When I was older, I finally asked her about this creepy habit. She told me they were all birds that had hit one of the windows and died and that she was saving them for identification purposes. It sounded logical at the time. It took me a while to start wondering a) why, if all she wanted to do was identify them, each one seemed to "live" in the freezer for months and months (and, quite frankly, none of them ever struck me as particularly exotic or hard to identify; in fact, some even I could identify), and b) what did she do with them once they were identified? I have no memory of any bird burials. Where did they go?

Of course, I eventually grew up and moved out of the house and Mom's habit became funny stories to tell my friends at college and a weird shared childhood memory for Sissy and I to bring up every now and again. That is, until about ten years ago.

I was living in town again and went to visit the folks. Mom wanted to show me something. She took me downstairs (for some reason, our freezers were always in the basement). Out of the freezer she brought a beautiful, dead, frozen hawk. It had, she said, hit a window.

We had some discussion about it, like what was she going to do with it. I don't remember what she said. I do remember walking away thinking, "I didn't make up those stories!"

Fast forward several months, when I'm getting ready to move away again. My friend, Rocky, is helping me move borrowed furniture back to The Farm. When we're in the basement, I say, "Let me show you something." I don't think I had ever shared Mom's habit with anyone. Little did I know, doing so would also provide me with a forum for sharing one of Daddy's habits with an outsider.

I take her to the freezer and open it. There is the hawk, wrapped in plastic. Unfortunately, it's no longer frozen because the freezer isn't working. Fortunately, it's apparently not been too long, because the bird hasn't started decaying yet. I'm not sure what to do. It's Mom's bird. I put it back, and we go upstairs.

I decide I need to report the situation to Daddy and let him deal with it. I'd learned in the seven months I'd been living back in the area that, although they were all incapacitated in various ways (Mom's Alzheimer's was in full swing; Daddy's Parkinson's was, too; and Mac was in blissful denial about everything), they did not want me sticking my nose where it didn't belong.

So as we are getting ready to leave, we go into the living room where Daddy is in his rightful place in the recliner.

"Daddy? I went to show Rocky the hawk but the freezer downstairs isn't working."

"Why, there's nothing wrong with that freezer!"

End of story.

I was so glad to have a witness to this. It was the story of my childhood: if you deny it, it won't be true.