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losing connie
By Hannah Sharpe, Guest Contributor
A pivotal moment of faith from my younger days. I wrote it in my 14th summer.
I had saved up all summer for Connie. She was my fifty-dollar, hand-fed cockatiel. A summer of flipping hamburgers had earned me the money, and the responsibility to get a pet of my own.
We had to keep her flight feathers clipped, so she wouldn't fly away; and a cuttlebone in her cage so her beak didn't get too long; and a number of other things to keep her safe.
We had just finished clipping her flight feathers, and we were going to take her outside for some fresh air. My mom offered to take her out on her shoulder while she worked in the garden. It was a pleasant, warm day with a delightful breeze that a bird native to Australia might enjoy, so I let her. We had taken her out for walks before and knew she could be trusted not to fly away, especially since we had just trimmed her ticket to freedom.
She was so happy to get out and stretch her long, gray and white wings, and to let her pale, yellow crest blow in the soft, warm breeze. I smelled the sun-ripened vegetables in the garden, and thought of the salad we would have for dinner tonight. We always had a garden fresh salad this time of year, filled with all kinds of green, leafy lettuce, juicy, red tomatoes that melt in your mouth, crisp, flavorful cucumbers, carrots sliced with love, and some crunchy, green broccoli, all topped with my mom's famous celery seed dressing. Another breeze blew, waking me up from my blissful daydream. I looked out and saw my mom rushing toward the house and a bird flying towards the field in our backyard.
My mom was acting like she had just burned the house down. She kept telling me how sorry she was and I had to calm her down and tell her it was alright and that we would find Connie. All the while, I was trying to convince myself of the thing I sounded so sure about.
We went out into the tick-infested field and searched out there for awhile, calling her name in hopes that she would call back in her sweet, soft tweet, when we had a feeling we might not be as lucky in our hunt as we had hoped.
We stopped and knelt, right in the middle of that tick-infested field, checking the ground before doing so, and prayed. After, we stood up and headed back to the now quiet house, without the treasure we had searched so long for.
Suddenly, we heard Samantha, our cat, meow a few feet away from us. Then we heard a noise that made our hearts burst with rapture. We ran towards the place our cat had sounded the alarm and there was Connie, my fifty-dollar, but worth every penny, hand-fed cockatiel.
God had answered our prayers in the most miraculous way possible and that night, at family prayer, we made sure to thank Him for his love.
We had to keep her flight feathers clipped, so she wouldn't fly away; and a cuttlebone in her cage so her beak didn't get too long; and a number of other things to keep her safe.
We had just finished clipping her flight feathers, and we were going to take her outside for some fresh air. My mom offered to take her out on her shoulder while she worked in the garden. It was a pleasant, warm day with a delightful breeze that a bird native to Australia might enjoy, so I let her. We had taken her out for walks before and knew she could be trusted not to fly away, especially since we had just trimmed her ticket to freedom.
She was so happy to get out and stretch her long, gray and white wings, and to let her pale, yellow crest blow in the soft, warm breeze. I smelled the sun-ripened vegetables in the garden, and thought of the salad we would have for dinner tonight. We always had a garden fresh salad this time of year, filled with all kinds of green, leafy lettuce, juicy, red tomatoes that melt in your mouth, crisp, flavorful cucumbers, carrots sliced with love, and some crunchy, green broccoli, all topped with my mom's famous celery seed dressing. Another breeze blew, waking me up from my blissful daydream. I looked out and saw my mom rushing toward the house and a bird flying towards the field in our backyard.
My mom was acting like she had just burned the house down. She kept telling me how sorry she was and I had to calm her down and tell her it was alright and that we would find Connie. All the while, I was trying to convince myself of the thing I sounded so sure about.
We went out into the tick-infested field and searched out there for awhile, calling her name in hopes that she would call back in her sweet, soft tweet, when we had a feeling we might not be as lucky in our hunt as we had hoped.
We stopped and knelt, right in the middle of that tick-infested field, checking the ground before doing so, and prayed. After, we stood up and headed back to the now quiet house, without the treasure we had searched so long for.
Suddenly, we heard Samantha, our cat, meow a few feet away from us. Then we heard a noise that made our hearts burst with rapture. We ran towards the place our cat had sounded the alarm and there was Connie, my fifty-dollar, but worth every penny, hand-fed cockatiel.
God had answered our prayers in the most miraculous way possible and that night, at family prayer, we made sure to thank Him for his love.
Copyright © 2014 by Rent's Due Publications
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, click a button on any page to send email with details of the request.