There’s been a death in my family. The house has stood silent for two days now, empty, a tomb of what was once a glorious presence, a visitation of sorts of the numinous in nature. Though life goes on as normal, nothing soothes my heartache. How can it be normal when such a presence has been lost?

My brother-in-law made me a blue bird house for Christmas. I put it up in my yard, delighted with thoughts those beautiful creatures might one day bless my solitude. In Spring, I was indeed visited with two blue angels, blue winged creatures that take your breath away. I feasted on their comings and goings, on every shift of blue and color that lit up my yard. A nest was built, with baby blue birds soon evident within those cradled walls. I worried how babies with no practice with those lovely wings might make it to safety with no nearby limb apparent. Stories of baby birds dropping onto the grass nearby until they find their wings clouded my excitement. I waited.

I came home from work one day and saw outside my window my feral cat playing in the grass. It looked as if she caught another chipmunk and was tormenting it, truly unto death. I took a deep breath. The blue bird house seemed suddenly silent, no longer the busy terminal it was the day before. Had the babies made it out to safety? Was it, indeed, a chipmunk? Surely I would know if something more sinister had taken place. I tried to move on, still distracted and soulfully torn.

Some time later, my lovely apparitions returned, once more making my yard a carnival of color and activity. More straw flown in, more babies in the making. Enchantment filled my life again. I placed a pole in my yard, nearby, in front of my small friends’ house. Surely the babies can make it to the pole, I thought. Surely they will be safe, and free.

For the last few days, mother bird has sat on that pole in my yard for what seemed hours, looking at her castle, flying in and out on spontaneous whims. I imagined her checking on her little ones. I felt the time was near when she would call her babies out into the world of nature and instruct them in the art of flying. It was the Fourth of July, Independence Day, and I was home all day, rooted by the window and filled with awe.

Nothing happened. I guessed it wouldn’t be today, as it was dinner time. I didn’t think the hour was right to teach baby birds how to master life outside the walls. I turned on the news and ate my dinner near the window.

From what seemed like nowhere, squealing sounds arrested me. My blue apparitions, my blue bird angels, were diving and squealing in frantic torpedo-like drops toward my feral cat, who from my window perch, looked slyly guilty. I ran outside, squealing and yelling and throwing up my arms in frantic movements, “No, no, no!” I chased the cat with two distraught blue birds close behind me, squealing, relentless, terror stricken. The cat ran, no longer within our range. I ran into the woods behind her, yelling, crying, praying. She was gone. The blue birds could not contain their horror.

Tiny, tiny feathers lay in the grass, too small to be anything but what I feared the most. My tears could not console my blue birds, nor myself. They finally flew away, emotions I can only half imagine. The feral cat I adopted from her birth, fed and had “fixed” so no more kittens could wander our streets, had just broken my heart and didn’t have a clue.

Two days have passed. I’ve tried to take the longer view, to see this tiny death as part of nature’s web, as part of the coming and going of each of us, from birth to death and to whatever the universe holds out for us then. I know we can only intervene when and where we can, where we are invited in, and sometimes can’t even then. I’ve learned to do all I can, to do the right thing — the only thing I can control — then to let go of the outcome. I know we have no real control of this thing we call life. I know both the agony and the serenity of letting go. And I know my present sadness will smooth out into a greater understanding of what I am here on this earth to learn. But I am sad nonetheless.

I created the perfect storm in my own back yard and I feel helpless to alter nature’s way. My feral cat does what a cat does when it’s a hunter. Wild as she is, I cannot catch her to put her inside when baby blue birds seem close to flight. I still feed her every day, though I have tried to tell her each time I see her that she broke my heart. I can only hope she eats so much she gets fat and sluggish and loses interest in every little thing that moves in my back yard.

My blue bird house still stands in my yard, empty, silent, a tomb of what was once a golden palace. I’ve left it there to weep with me when I reach back for those winged visitations. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I can only stay with today for now. The joy and awe that were mine only days ago teach me that life is worth the trudging on.