Listening for Whippoorwills

The first time I can remember listening for whippoorwills was when Mary Kern died. When we decided we wanted to live in Jupiter Farms, Mary was our realtor and helped us purchase two of the three adjoining properties we own. Her husband, Richard, was a contractor and he built our home for us.

In 1991, both Mary and I were diagnosed with cancer. I survived but Mary was not as fortunate. A short time before she died, I went to visit her in the hospital. She was serene and at peace with the fact that she was not going to beat her cancer. She told me I was lucky and should live my life as if every moment mattered, because it did. We cried a lot and hugged goodbye. It was the last time I saw her.

Around the middle of February, Mary died. After hearing the news, I walked outside. It was cold. My horses nickered for me in the dusk. That time of evening, for them, only meant one thing, dinner. I mixed their feed and loaded it into the wheelbarrow with heavy pads of hay. As I made the rounds, dumping their food into buckets and dropping hay in their racks, I was waiting for something.

I grieved for a friend, wife and mother whose life had been too short. The crescent moon glowed dimly through the trees, lighting up the western sky. Then I heard the whippoorwill. Its cry is its name — whipp-oor-will, a distinct and lonely trill. In the darkness, I was waiting for a sound to match my sadness.

Visiting South Florida briefly on their way to who knows where, the whippoorwill's cry reminds me of those I've loved and will never see again in this life. Each year, my mother used to tell me, there will be more of them.

When I hear the cry of the first whippoorwill, I speak their names as a litany, believing they will hear me and know they haven't been forgotten.

Twenty years later, it is Valentine's night, and I have started listening for whippoorwills.

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For Cindy, Topsy, Misty, Daisy, Danny Boy, Pop, Gran, Betsy, Fred, Sam, Mary Ella, Kathijean, Lump, Chari, Dump, Speedo, Sandi, Skipper, Sasha, W Baron Gairloch, Rusty, BH Bay Flag, Crescent Moon, Lea, CC Baron Gandolf, Big, Chaos, Dad, Mom, Lacey, Char, Rocky, Tweety, Snowball, Samantha, Willie, Tammeer, Mariah, Miska, Ferrere, Gigi, GiGi, Margaret, Mike, Pauline, Lloyd, Ed, Mary, Dave, Daryl, Dolly, Noodle, April, Abby, Lynn, George, Betty, Dal, Suwa, and anyone I've forgotten. I love you all.

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Whippoorwill by John James Audubon