Before mom was sick I showed her some heron pictures I wanted from Pottery Barn. Anthony and I live on a pond, and we have a big, blank wall in the living room that these large heron pictures would be great for. Mom told me I should buy them, but they were expensive and I never did. A few days before mom passed, my sister and I were searching online for funeral songs. She sent me a song and I listened to it in my car as I was leaving my house one day. Just as I was backing out of the driveway, a heron swooped down low right over my car, making a lot of noise in the process. I knew we had to use that song (The Other Side by Lauren Alaina), and I knew herons would be my sign from mom.
Since then, I see herons all the time. My drive to work goes through a marshy area where there are lots of them, so many that people pull over on the side of the road to photograph them. Shortly after mom passed, one would fly over just about everyday I on my way to work. As time went on, it happened less and less, but they would be there on important days: my brother-in-law Allen’s birthday, my cousin Rachel’s birthday.
Anthony and I went to Antigua in June of 2021 for our first big vacation since Covid started. This vacation was much needed after everything that had happened the previous year. It was a great, relaxing vacation, and while we were there we got engaged. It took me a few days there to realize, but the landing of the large staircase off the back of the resort, that leads from the rooms to the pool and restaurants, were flanked by two very large heron statues. Unlike the other pictures on this post, I didn’t take this one, but I wish I had taken one. They’re a little difficult to see, but they’re at the bottom of the image. They’re a greenish color, not sure if they’re real copper, and they were probably 6 feet tall.
At the end of June, Anthony and I went away for a long weekend with our friends to the Eastern Shore. We rented a house on the water and only went in and out of the house from the back door that faced the water. On Sunday when we were leaving, we all left the house out of the front door so we could lock up. There was a little heron statue in the flower bed right beside the front door.
For mom’s birthday, our family decided to go to the beach so we could all be together for her first birthday without her. My sister, Kasey, had a friend from work whose family had a beach house that we rented. Kasey had sent me the house to look at online and the house looked nice. When I walked in the house, I saw this hanging in the stairwell.
Once again 🤯 There was no picture of this sign in the online house listing. We also saw a heron fly right in front of us on our drive to the beach on mom’s birthday, and on the drive home, Anthony and I each spotted one flying over us.
Kasey and I went to the beach with Nan, our grandmother, and aunt Karen in early August. As we stood on the deck outside the front door, waiting to go in, the first thing I saw, through the window, was a miniature stained glass of a heron, sitting on the windowsill above the kitchen sink.
As I mentioned earlier, the area I drive through to get to work usually has herons sitting in the trees or they’ll fly over as I’m driving to or from work. That August I also saw lots of white egrets in the marsh. When I first drove by all I saw was a big blob of white (I can’t see very well), but I realized that it was egrets and a lot of them. I’m not the most observant when it comes to nature, at least I didn’t used to be, but I was pretty sure they’ve never been there before. I told my dad and sister about the egrets and showed them a picture I had taken of them. My sister said her husband had noticed them too and that this was the first year he’s ever seen them. 🤯 They only hung around a few weeks, and I haven’t seen them again.
Those white spots are egrets, and there are at least eight in this picture.
A few weeks later I went to the beach with Anthony and his family (I took a lot of vacations the year mom died 😂, sorry not sorry). Anthony picked a random Chick-fil-A to stop at on the way, and as we walked back out to the truck I saw this statue in the parking lot.
Also, I never realized it, but a lot of Maryland license plates are the “Treasure the Chesapeake” ones and they have a heron on them. 🤯 Obviously I saw a ton of these in Ocean City, but I also see a bunch on I-95 or 301 when I’m going to work, and I always think of mom.
Fast forward to October, and my dad is scheduled for rotator cuff surgery. I take off work to take him, since I know the hospital and know his surgeon. I don’t typically feel worried about these kinds of things, but only having one parent left kind of changes things, and I was nervous about him having surgery. I get escorted to the waiting room and pick a seat by the wall near an outlet, so I can charge my phone, and close to the TV screens that have a tracker board of the patients. I said some silent prayers and played on my phone trying to calm my nerves. I was planning on going to get Chick-fil-A breakfast as soon as his status changed from pre-op to in the OR. As I looked up from my phone, this huge painting is facing the chair I’m sitting in.
These are my mom’s dogs, Lola and Ellie.
Seeing that painting with the heron gave me a sense of peace and comfort that I cannot describe. And seeing the painting of the two dogs come up on my phone let me know my mom is always with me.
On my birthday last year, the first birthday without my mom, two flew over my dad’s house as I stood outside with Anthony. I hadn’t yet ever seen more than one flying together. One actually flew over I-64, out near Afton Mountain, after we scattered mom’s ashes on her sister Regina’s gravesite. They fly over my dad’s house when I’m there helping him by putting out decorations or cleaning. Anthony even pointed one out to me at our house when I was leaving to go to dad’s to put up his Christmas tree. One flew over my work parking lot as I was leaving to go home the day before Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday and the first one without mom. I see them everywhere. In fact, three herons flew over me on the day I decided to start writing posts for this blog, with that being the most I’ve ever seen flying together.
Last March I took dad for his colonoscopy appointment. I waited in the car because of Covid policies and read a book I’ve been meaning to read, a memoir of a girl whose mother died. As I’m sitting in the car I reach a part in the book where the girl talks about her mom taking walks to go see… herons. 🤯 I was like, "Are you kidding me?" About ten minutes passed, I look up from my book and a white Volkswagen Atlas has parked two spaces over beside me, which is the same car my mom had when she passed. Dad was still in the waiting room at this point, and he texted me, “Look who just pulled up beside you.”
My phone is now filled with pictures and screenshots of all the herons I see, along with other signs I feel are sent from mom. I keep a note in my Notes app, titled Mom, with all the signs I get from her. I know I notice these things more, even when I’m not necessarily looking for a sign, but I think that’s what death does to you. You pay attention. You notice life more instead of letting it pass you by.
BeST,
Brittany
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