James Etheridge

The little girl walked with her Mommy through the front door of her grandmother and grandfather’s house, through the dining room and into the sunroom. The sun was streaming through the big windows and onto the floor where Meme was sitting. Her Poppy was sitting in his chair. Their dog Sugar was lying on the floor with his head in Meme’s lap. He was not moving and his eyes were closed. Meme and Poppy were both crying. Meme looked up at her and said, “Hey, baby. Sugar’s gone.” The child began to cry. She did not understand what Meme meant when she said he was gone. She thought she knew, but wasn’t certain. All she really knew was that he was not well. She ran to the dog, fell beside him and hugged his neck. He was warm but did not raise his head and lick her face like all the other times she hugged his neck. This time he was completely still. “Sugar, come back!” the little girl cried. “We still have to play ball, read books and watch TV together!” She heard her Mommy start to cry, then felt her beside her, rubbing her shoulder and stroking her hair. The child buried her head in the dog’s neck and sobbed. She loved her grandparent’s dog. She had a kitty cat at home, but not a dog. Sugar was an American bulldog with a white coat, a stubby tail, a brown and black spot over his right eye and not a mean bone in his body. He got his name because Meme said he was “as sweet as sugar.”

Whenever the little girl spent the night with her grandparents she and Sugar would play in the back yard for hours. She would throw his tennis ball to him and then have to chase him down to get it back and throw it again. One day she got into a yellow jackets’ nest and the bees stung her all over her face, arms and legs. Sugar ran right into the middle of the swarm to protect her, snarling and biting and coming out of the fray with more than a few stings and lumps of his own on his face and head  Meme took a picture of them together afterwards with their swollen faces covered in baking soda and water. The little girl was hugging the dog’s neck and he was licking her face. He was her hero.

When she was younger, she would have tea parties and he would always sit still on the other side of the table because she would share her vanilla wafers with him. Sugar had lived at her Meme and Poppy’s for as long as she could remember, but she had noticed lately that he did not run, jump or play as much as he used to and mostly just lay on his bed in the sunroom. She had heard Meme, Poppy, her Mommy and Daddy talking about him using big words she couldn’t understand and putting medicine in his food. But she didn’t dream he would go. No one had ever gone before.

“The vet left about fifteen minutes ago,” Meme said to the little girl’s Mommy. “I’m sorry, we should have called earlier, but I didn’t want her to see.” Meme started crying again. “That’s okay, Mom,” said her Mommy. “We understand, don’t we dear?” The little girl sniffed and nodded with her head on Sugar’s shoulder and her arms around his neck. But she didn’t understand at all. She had prayed in Sunday school and at night before bed for God to help Sugar feel better. Why wouldn’t He make him feel better? Why was Sugar gone? She didn’t understand.

The cardinal flew across the creek to the feeders behind the big yellow house. He had been resting in a tree in the woods behind the house, when he felt a strong tug toward the room with the big windows at the back of the house. He knew the man and woman who lived in the yellow house along with the large, white dog with the brown and black eye. The man kept the feeders filled with food and the woman tended the fragrant flowers that the butterflies and the small summer birds liked.

It was not summer now. The sky was bright, but the air was cold. The snow had not yet arrived, but the cardinal knew it was coming. Many of the other birds had left the yard and the woods before the air had become cold. But he, his mate, other cardinals and several different types of birds stayed in the woods behind the yellow house year-round. He flew to the top of the red house with the black roof that sat on the pole in the middle of the yard that the big green feeder hung from. He looked at the room with the big windows at the back of the house. Something was compelling him to fly there and look in. He knew that the woman, the man and the dog were in there.

The cardinal puffed up his feathers for a few minutes to warm up, then flew to the window on the side of the room that opened up to the steps going down to the ground. He perched on the top of the window, then leaned over with his head upside down and peered in. The woman, who was sitting down with the dog’s head in her lap, saw the cardinal immediately. “Look, baby!” she exclaimed to the little girl. “It’s a redbird!” The man turned and looked at him. “Hey, buddy,” he said. “Did you come to see us?” The woman was crying. She gently laid the dog’s head on a pillow on the floor. The dog did not move. She stood up and walked over to the window with the little girl. The cardinal had seen the little girl playing with the dog in the back yard many times. There was only a small space between the bird and the woman’s face on opposite sides of the window. “You are so beautiful,” the woman sobbed. The man stood up, put his hand around the little girl’s shoulder and wiped his eyes with his other hand. The child’s Mommy stood with her hands pressed together covering her nose and mouth.

The cardinal fluttered down to the top of the handrail on the steps and peered at the little girl. He felt a strange and strong bond with all of them but with the little girl in particular. He cocked his head and dropped down to the top of the steps. He continued to look up at the child. The man was smiling and, though her hands covered her nose and mouth, he could tell that the little girl’s Mommy was laughing and crying at the same time. It was then that the cardinal heard the “Chirpity, chirpity chirp” call of his mate from a tree in the woods. He puffed up his feathers and looked up at the little girl again and then turned his head toward the woods and answered with a “Cheer, cheer, cheer” and flew to his mate. As he flew away, he heard the woman call at him not to go. As he sat in the tree next to his mate, he could see the woman, the man, the little girl and her mother standing at the window, looking into the woods. He could see them, but they could not see him.

Back inside the sunroom, Meme hung up her phone. “That was Wheeler’s,” she said. “They’re on their way to pick him up.” “Come on, baby, let’s go,” the little girl’s Mommy said to her. “I don’t want to go. Can’t we stay so I can tell him goodbye?” asked the child. “Baby, wouldn’t you rather tell him goodbye now and remember him the way he’s always been?” asked Mommy. “No, I want to stay with him,” cried the child. She heard Meme sob. The little girl could not understand why she couldn’t stay. Poppy sat down in his chair and called to the child to sit in his lap. He put his arms around her and said, “Baby girl, it will be very hard for any of us to see Sugar leave the house for the last time. But you have to understand that that is just his body. He will come back and stay here in a beautiful urn. You can see him every time you come here.” The little girl sniffed again and put her head on Poppy’s shoulder. “You know the redbird we saw earlier?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, a redbird is a sign from Heaven. It’s a sign that those we love and have gone ahead of us will live forever. That means that Sugar will always be here,” he said, tapping her forehead, “and here,” tapping her chest. “The redbird will keep him safe in our memories and in our hearts. Do you understand?” But she did not understand. She did not understand why Sugar couldn’t get up and lick her face or why the redbird had come. All she really understood was that Sugar was lying on the floor and he wasn’t moving. “Now,” said Poppy, “do you want to hug him goodbye and cover him with a blanket to keep him warm?” The little girl nodded again. She jumped down from his lap, went to the room she slept in while spending the night with Meme and Poppy and pulled a blanket off the foot of the bed. It was a white blanket with redbirds on it. She went back downstairs with the blanket to the sunroom. “Here, Sugar,” she said. “The blanket will keep you warm and the redbirds will keep you safe.” She sat down, hugged Sugar’s neck, kissed him on his cheek and told him she loved him. Then she and Mommy left. The little girl cried all the way home. She just could not understand why Sugar was gone.

A couple of weeks later the little girl and Mommy went to Meme and Poppy’s house for Sunday dinner. She ran to Meme and hugged her. “Hey, baby,” said Meme. “Come over here, we have something to show you.” They walked to the cabinet by the front door. Meme picked up a beautiful blue and gold metal container and handed it to her. “What’s this?” asked the child. “It’s Sugar,” replied Meme.
“Sugar?”
“Yes, dear. That’s the urn that holds his ashes.”
“His ashes?”
“Yes, baby. He was cremated.”
“What’s cremated?”
“Have you heard of the Rainbow Bridge?”
“Yes, ma’am. Mommy told me about it. She said Sugar is waiting for me there.”
“That’s right, dear. Cremation happens when one of our pets goes to the Rainbow Bridge. God sends them back to us as ashes until we see them again on the Rainbow Bridge.”
“Sugar is in here?”
“Yes, baby.”
“But I thought he was on the Rainbow Bridge.”
“He is, dear. His ashes are here for us to hold onto.”
The little girl still did not understand. She put the container back on top of the cabinet. Poppy put Sugar’s collar on top of the container. “His collar and tags stay here with him,” he said, smiling. “But do you remember the two places I told you Sugar will always be?” “Yes, sir, here and here,” she said, pointing at her head and her heart. “That’s right, baby,” he said, rubbing her shoulder. “That’s right.”

Meme, Poppy and Mommy sat down on the sofa and chair in the living room and started talking grown-up talk. The little girl walked out into the sunroom. She climbed onto Poppy’s chair and looked over the back of it into the back yard. Just then the redbird flew into the yard and landed on top of the red birdhouse with the black roof and the white words on the pole with the big green feeder. He looked up at the little girl in the sunroom and they stared at each other for a long time. Finally the redbird ruffled his feathers, cocked his head and called out, “Chirpity, chirpity chirp!” and flew into the woods. “Goodbye, Mister Redbird,” said the child, smiling. She understood.