Such fun Sarah and I had over the years, spying two crows and darting our hands out to cover each other’s eyes. (The joy, you see, can only be experienced if one person spots the crows.) Besides, Sarah and I figured what was good for one would automatically carry over for the other.
Last summer, thirty years into our mutual crow counting habit, Sarah and I, on our own, kept seeing one crow (...sorrow). So often did this happen that Sarah began calling me to remark and laugh, nervously, about it. At this point I was (conveniently, perhaps) coming around to Don’s old viewpoint: “Crows are not gregarious. If you see a single crow, generally he is out foraging for food; he is not trying to make your life miserable.”
In September, however, when life changed radically, I wondered if I had been wrong in adopting Don’s logic. So I started again...One crow sorrow, two crows joy...and it wasn’t long before I began paying particular attention to every crow couple I saw.
[The sorts of things two crows had come to mean were these:
I passed the test.
I got the job.The x-ray was negative.
He gave me a raise.
She invited me to dinner.
They remembered my birthday.
They’re going to publish my story.
But in the fall, everything, as I said, changed.]
In September, when the skies were taking on more vivid autumn hues and the leaves were blowing along the sidewalk, two crows meant, “There is a mass, but given Sarah’s asthma and pneumonia history, it might be some weird virus that we can treat with antibiotics.”
By October, when Lainey was set to celebrate her fourth birthday, two crows meant “incurable but treatable. This is not a death sentence. There is also a trial drug that has proven somewhat successful.”
By November, when the sky took on its pre-winter grey, two crows meant, “The chemotherapy doesn’t seem as bad as we imagined. The treatment area on the second floor is lovely and, except for the gruesome volunteer at the front desk [how’s that for irony?] so are all the staff.”
By December, when the air was turning colder and the snow had set in, two crows meant, “There are only two small hemangioma and there is minimal bone invasion. The chemotherapy should wipe all that out quickly.”
In January, after the lung bleed and successful radiation, two crows meant (successful radiation and), “How fortunate that the trial drug was not an option because that lung bleed could have quickly become a hemorrhage.”
By February, when Lainey was anticipating Valentine’s cards and candy, two crows meant, “We know the treatment has not worked the way we had hoped, but there’s a new chemotherapy pill that has been highly successful, especially in young women.”
And now, in March, when we have seen our first double digits on the plus side of the Celsius scale, two crows has come to mean, “Mum, this treatment is not working and I want to stop. I am tired mum, but, mostly, I am not afraid.”
I have spent many moments in the past weeks and months thinking also of Sarah’s father – how grateful I am that he has not been here to see his daughter suffering in these ways; trying to imagine him here beside me, us beside her, his dark eyes relentlessly heartbroken.
And I remember, too, all my wonderful years with Sarah, and teaching my little girl, both of us so young...
One crow sorrow
Two crows joy
Three crows a letter
Four crows a boy
Five crows silver
Six crows gold
Seven crows a secret – never to be told.
