I Dreamt of Flight

A paramedic’s dispatches from the edge of life, loss, and reinvention at 60

carriecuthbert.art

I’m afraid of birds.

Not enough to stay away from them, but enough that when one gets too close, I instinctively step back.

Which is inconvenient, because birds have a habit of finding me.

Usually when I’m alone.

One morning in Mexico, my husband didn’t want to get up for a walk. He had already showered and didn’t want to get sweaty again, so I went alone.

I understood. But I was still disappointed. I had wanted him beside me.

The beach was nearly empty.

Farther along, I noticed something moving in the sand.

Small. Wriggling. Fighting its way toward the water.

A baby sea turtle.

She was so tiny, and the distance ahead of her looked impossible. I watched her struggle before picking her up and carrying her to the edge of the ocean. I set her down and watched the water take her.

Later, I wondered whether I should have helped. Maybe I should have let nature take its course. Maybe the struggle was part of what she needed.

I still don’t know.

I only know that once I saw her, I couldn’t walk past.

Further down the beach, I saw pelicans fishing near the reef.

Pelicans are the only birds I love. They are beautiful and ridiculous at the same time — awkward-looking until they spread their wings and become graceful. I had been hoping to see them up close all week, but they had always been too far away.

That morning, they finally came close enough for me to watch them rise, circle, and plunge into the water.

My dog, Maple, and I used to run this loop for years. There was one hill in it we always climbed together.

Every time, near the top, a herd of deer scattered from the trees. Maple had no stealth in her at all — she’d take off after them full speed, no hesitation, every single time. She never got close. She didn’t care.

I admired that about her — that kind of determination that doesn’t need to win to keep going.

A week after she died, I went back and ran the loop alone. The first time I’d run it without her.

I cried the entire run. Cresting the hill, I was still thinking about her — the full-speed sprint that never once caught anything, and never once slowed down because of that.

At the top, instead of deer, a flock of crows lifted off. More than I’d ever seen there before. The sheer number of them was staggering.

It took me a minute.

Then I laughed and said it out loud:

“Fuck Maple, it had to be crows.”

They followed me, staying with me for a couple of miles before breaking off and scattering.

It felt like a message from her.

I went back the next week, wondering if it would happen again.

There wasn’t a crow in sight.

Not that day. Not any day since.

After my mother died, I went down to the reservoir.

Grief had taken hold that day. I was devastated. I went looking for release — not happiness, exactly, but a sense of presence. Of being alive. A way to refocus the grief into the now, into the moment I was actually standing in.

It’s a special place for me. It was one of Uncle Greg’s favorites. From here, I can see the last place he lived. Thinking of him there always grounds me — I often pause, close my eyes, and just feel the heat on my face, the smell of the trees.

That day, I did the same thing.

Stood still.

Closed my eyes.

Let the heat and the smell of the trees hold me for a minute.

When I opened them and looked up into a tree, I saw a massive gathering of crows.

Fucking crows.

Same birds. Different loss. Different place.

Two losses. Two flocks.

I felt it immediately.

My mother.

The connection.

My husband didn’t want to come, so I walked the quarter mile to the inlet alone in the dark, not wanting to miss the sun cresting over the mountain.

The path was thick with moss, dark even that early. I picked my way around deadfall, watching my footing — the dew had made everything slippery, the moss especially.

Large trees lined the path. They made me feel safe and isolated at the same time.

At the water’s edge, there was a folded chair just sitting there.

I unfolded it and sat down to watch the sunrise over the hill across the inlet.

The moment I sat down, my fear disappeared. I felt like an invisible observer.

Behind me, a tree towered over the house we were staying in — three times its height, the house itself two stories.

The eagles came close.

Close enough that I heard the air move with each wingbeat — a low whoosh, almost a hum. Not overhead, not in the distance.

Right beside me.

I wasn’t afraid.

Not in that moment.

What I felt was gratitude.

Their beauty, passing so close I could feel it.

When I was young, I had a recurring dream of flying.

This was the closest I’ve ever felt to it while awake.

I wondered if they even knew I was there, tucked beneath the trees.

Then I heard a different sound — a fast, fluttering hum near my head.

My first thought was that something was sneaking up on me.

I turned.

A hummingbird.

Then another.

It was awe-inspiring — the two of them, that close, that fast.

Watching it all unfold — the most powerful bird I know, then the smallest, moments apart.

Mother Nature put on a show that morning.

A sea turtle.

Two flocks of crows.

Eagles.

Hummingbirds.

Some of them felt like visitations.

My mother.

Maple.

Showing up in the one shape I’m afraid of, at the exact moment I was alone with the loss of them.

They were four ordinary days with extraordinary moments.

I don’t know for sure what any of it means.

But I want to believe it adds up to something bigger.

Maybe I’d mistaken the dream for flight.

Maybe it was always about perspective.