IT'S A SIGN

It's been almost eleven years since a friend of mine passed away after a return cancer diagnosis. She was only 59 years old.

When she was near the end, she told her two daughters and husband to look for her whenever they encountered a hummingbird. Shortly after her passing, a hummingbird appeared just outside the sliding glass door leading out to the backyard of their house.

In the weeks after her passing, I also experienced several encounters with hummingbirds showing up in my backyard and along the creek trail where I run. It's not at all unusual to see hummingbirds in our yard or around our neighborhood, but sometimes one materializes that seems to want to tell me something. Or at least makes a big attempt at having me notice them by flying very closely and hovering above me as if to say, "Look at me! I'm here." It continues to flit around me until I finally say, "Claudia? Is that you? Hi!" Then, it quickly flutters away.

As another anniversary of her passing is approaching this spring, perhaps she just wanted to remind me that she is still very much here.