Prince July 10, 1995
This evening while we were eating supper a woman from my dance class paid us a visit. She had a young swallow that had fallen out of the nest in her yard. Although it was not injured it was weak and did not have the strength to fly.
I held it for a while, amazed at this little surprise that came for a visit. After supper we used a small dropper to force feed it some mashed up worms and dog food, Patrick’s childhood recipe for just such an occasion.
We placed it in our padded woven reed picnic basket so it could rest and hopefully feel safe while doing so, daylight peeking through the gaps between the reeds. For the next week every morning I would get up at dawn, go outside and capture flies for his meal. Early in the morning the flies are on the grass drinking the dew and I would lay on my stomach and gently sneak up and flick them with my finger, stunning them for a moment.
I would then be able to grab them by the wings and while holding the bird in one hand, would hold the fly in front of its eye so he could grab it. What a crazy feeling, to see his movement so precise that he didn’t even nick my fingers in the process. Even our next door neighbours participated in the food catching game because of course, as luck would have it, not one fly came in our house to land on the fly traps set out during this time.
But our neighbours brought over their catches which helped a lot. The first question of the morning being, “How is the little bird?” During the day he would hang out with me, riding on my finger or my shoulder. I brought him outside and he would sit on the clothesline or the back of a chair watching me wherever I went. I would sit with him too, holding him because it was so nice to have this rare opportunity.
One afternoon a few days later our next door neighbour proudly came over with the catch of the day for Prince (I named him after the swallow from the story, The Little Prince). It was a huge fly—a very satisfying meal for the little guy. Later I brought him outside with me while I hung out the laundry. He was sitting on the clothesline watching me, and I kept an eye on him as well, just making sure he was strong enough to hold on.
I had a feeling he was getting ready to fly away. I got distracted by a fly that landed on the grass in front of me (funny how quickly I adapted at hoping to see a fly) and when I looked back seconds later Prince was gone. I looked everywhere for him to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself, but couldn’t find him. I had to assume he was off catching his own dinner now. I was sad he was gone, of course, but it was right he did go. And I was grateful that he received the time he needed to heal and gain the strength to fly.
That night I had a dream about a swallow landing on our bird feeder. It was alright but looked tired and for some reason it was all wet. But I went and got him on my finger and brought him to show Patrick saying, “Look who’s here to say hello?” That was all there was to the dream.
The next afternoon I was not feeling well and so had a lazy day, just resting. We ate our supper in the living room and afterwards I sat there and relaxed. Patrick put some music on and then went to his upstairs studio. I sat on the couch looking out the window watching the clouds and saw something amazing. There was a large grey cloud, the exact shape of our swallow Prince.
It was a perfect image of the swallow perched on a leafy branch and it was looking over it’s left shoulder to the west. The image remained for a moment or two before transforming into something else. It amazed me how perfect it had been and it brought tears to my eyes because it was as if Prince had come to say, ‘Thank-you, I’m fine now.’
**An interesting note perhaps connecting to a dream of the previous month.* I had just finished reading The Happy Prince to our six year old son, Lucas, which is why I thought to name the swallow, Prince. What I also thought of after seeing this cloud was the eyes of the statue of the little prince, sapphires much like the birds eyes of my previous dream. In the story it was the swallow who, at the request of the Prince, took his jewel eyes and gave them to the poor. Just an interesting connection.
*see Sapphire Dream, Chapter II, page 81
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