 The news came from my mother, who had received a call from an aunt.  I doubled over when I heard it. The news may have been ten months coming but it was still something too difficult to truly feel. No one sent a letter of condolence, except for my gay Uncle Frank, whom everyone in my father’s religiously fundamental family believed needed medication in order to overcome his homosexuality.  Burdened with pain and grief, I failed to understand why his entire family, of five dozen strong, had decided to excommunicate me.  His family should have been my family, too.  I could not understand what made them treat me so poorly.  There was no funeral for him, or if there was I had not been invited.  

	Months passed slowly.  I had little memory of when winter had turned into spring, but before I came to full consciousness summer had arrived.  July had come, his birth month.  On his birthday, I found strength to pull myself out of bed and wander to the back porch deck, fumbling with a lighter in the dark to light my cigarette.  The dawn began to break through the night, the sky becoming a dark gray as it transitioned slowly to lighter hues to finally give way to light blue.  I stood for an hour or more, contemplating the plants and trees, the birds and their songs, the dew on the wooden hand railing at my waist, the shades of the changing sky. “Happy birthday, Daddy.  I miss you.” I whispered as I looked skyward.

	I flicked my cigarette butt into the grass and turned to go inside, but a small noise made me pause. I turned around to find a cardinal perched on the railing where my hands had been moments before. A brilliant red cardinal stared at me with half realizing, half knowing eyes.  Though only about six feet from me he did not appear scared, but inquisitive, cocking his head to the side, then to the other, seeming to nod to some silent conversation between us.  I moved to light another cigarette, and the undeterred cardinal continued to quietly observe me.  We locked eyes for quite some time, feeling comfort in the company of each other, feeling unafraid of each other.  At some point, I noticed my forgotten cigarette had become an ember burning into the filter.  Discarding it, I turned back.  The bird had gone.

	It was morning now, the sun evidenced, as streams of light reached through the treetops. No longer did the dark hang overhead.  I didn’t feel like I was on the porch in the rain anymore, searching for answers to questions in the night.  No longer did I believe myself alone.  It had been a long night, I thought, and it had taken me even longer to wake up.  I finally accepted there had to be something bigger than me out there, even if I didn’t quite know how to define it. 