In memory of Sue Coombe (1926-2021)
It takes a long time until you can turn into a bird. A lifetime. A long life.
It helps if you’re beautiful to start with, of course. She was. Long neck, fine bones, mischievous eyes. And glamorous in those old photos. Primed for plumage.
She lived a life spent in travel. Migrating. That helps, too. Good preparation for Africa and back, just like before. In Britain she settled in gardens, a step away from hopping between the flowers and leafy shrubs. Flitted across golf courses. Perhaps she knew even then.
She took many into her nest, mothering, grandmothering. She wasn’t just my granny. Any chicks who came near her roost were welcomed in.
Her voice stays with me. Still cut glass, as she told her wild stories of a forgotten time. Chirruping. And we all listened, even if we’d heard the song before.
The final stages of the metamorphosis are hard.
It starts with the body. She was always small, but birds are smaller. She shrank, her limbs becoming sparrow-legs, as she merely pecked at her food.
Her face, with its fine bones, faded away, readying itself for the change. Her nose a tiny beak against sharpened cheekbones. Her eyes keener in their hollows.
She saved her energy then. No longer walking, she could ready herself to fly.
Birds have little minds. Hers began to fade. Words became little sounds: chirp, chirp, tweet, tweet. Like a trained cockatiel, she repeated her familiar phrases.
Yes. No. Marvellous.
Syllables without sense, sounds without meaning.
There were only a few words in the end.
Hello, Celia, some new nurse would say.
Actually, it’s Sue, we’d tell them.
Sue, Sue, cooed the voice from the bed.
I watched her when she was no longer comfortable in her skin. Her bird legs flailed, her arms flapped. She was almost there, almost in flight. Ready to take to the skies.
One night she took her last mortal breath. That beautiful woman, ancient and frail, left her human frame and flew.