Susan Thom

Why Would My Dining Room Hutch Be Filled With Red Cardinals


Posted: Thursday, September 13, 2007

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This is a story a little about my mom, a little about how you can decorate really cheaply, and how you can honor your mom at the same time. My mother loved cardinals. She had the ceramic knick knacks at her apartment, which I now have since she has passed.

There have been many times when I was in deep despair, that a cardinal showed up in front of me, just at the right time. I always take this as my mother's only way right now to communicate with me, and to tell me she's with me, and helping me, and that I'm doing the right thing. There have been times that I've been thinking about what I was going to do about one of my kids, while driving in the car, and I was confused, but finally make up my mind, and a cardinal flew across my windshield. I take that as her affirmation that I made the right decision.

One time, I was going through a deep depression, and crying the hard sob cries, and again, while driving in the car. I couldn't stop, and it was hard to see, and I had to keep wiping my eyes. Something came darting at my windshield, and I instinctually ducked, and looked in my rear view mirror to see a cardinal flying away. At the same time, a calm came over me, I stopped crying, and I felt renewed.

Another time after my mom passed, I was looking out my bathroom window, and there was one lone tree in the yard. It was really windy, and I was sobbing. I missed my mom, and I didn't know what to do with those feelings. A cardinal flew onto a branch. I got the calm feeling again and I said, if this bird can hold on to that branch in this wind, I'll believe it's my mom, and it did, and then flew off.

I was upset about a month ago, and when I pulled out of my driveway, there was a cardinal standing smack dab in the middle of the road, just waiting for me. I had to rev my engine for it to move.

I am fifty one, and I've never seen a red cardinal in the middle of the road.

My partner bought me three birdhouses for Valentine's day, and put them up on the posts a few days before, and promised me I would have red cardinals feeding in the birdhouses on Valentine's day, and sure enough, they came. It was their first time to their new homes.

So, cardinals are very personal and sentimental to me.

Now, here comes the decorating part. I happened to be in the dollar store, I love that place, and what did I come across but cardinal plates and cups and soup bowls. One dollar each. So, I got twelve, and decorated my hutch. I love red and white, and I love having a memorial hutch to my mom. She and my dad bought it for me twenty years ago.

There are four glasses that I took from her apartment after she passed. They are in my hutch, and have been for eighteen years. I went to a well known medium, and she told me my mom was glad I kept her glasses, and not reading glasses, drinking glasses, and they are there! And for twenty four dollars, I get a beautiful hutch.



Susan Thom is the mother of three children, two sons, 20 and 23, and a daughter 25. Her older son is in the air force in Germany right now, and her daughter is in the army in Tacoma, Washington.

Writing calms her, and gives her a place to go by herself! Clears the head and gets it out. She lives in a rural area, with a lake and mountains, and her partner, and has loved writing since she was a child.

She has been on a journey of self discovery for twenty years, and has learned many things about the human mind, and how to maintain some semblance of calm and peace within.

If someone reads one of her stories, and relates to her feelings, and gets a suggestion on how she dealt with them in a positive way, that would be the ultimate gift of her writing.

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