A hot summer’s day and hummingbirds abound!

How can I not be fascinated by them? Their grace, beauty, agility … and oh yes, their symbolism.
Reflection emerges.

For the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Coast, the hummingbird is a messenger of joy. But not just joy – also intelligence, beauty, devotion, love, protectors and defender of their territory.

Yesterday and today, this particular hummingbird has returned over and over again. In each visit, a cloud of sadness, began to lift. And through that cloud of sadness on this, the fifth anniversary of my husband’s unexpected death, love shines.

Long before I knew him, our paths began to intersect. Some call it “fate”. Some call it “co-incidence.” We called it “Divine Love.”

In Montreal, he and his family lived about three blocks away from my family. In North Vancouver, he and his family lived a few miles away from me. On the Sunshine Coast, his family had a summer cottage in the community I worked. We never met in any of those places. We met by happenstance at a Christmas Fair, three years after his wife died. It wasn’t “love” or “sparks.” It was simply a meeting of two people who shared common interests and who began a friendship.

And then ‘love’ entered the scene … not between the two of us (just yet) … but through a rescue dog – Hans’ little King Charles spaniel named Shandy. As the years passed and the friendship Hans and I shared grew, ‘love’ entered the spaces that had been empty for far-too-long. He asked me to marry him. I said “No, not yet.” He asked again and again and again and each time my response was “not yet.”

Then one day, he phoned and invited me for an afternoon drive. We often did that so when he came by with the four-legged canine blessing called Shandy, off we went for a drive to Qualicum Beach – one of our favourite drives on Vancouver Island. On a bench overlooking the ocean, he asked me to marry him. This time, I knew that the obstacles we had talked about were nothing if we faced them together. I realized that his love for me was so deep, as was mine for him, that spending the rest of our lives together, no matter how long or how short, was Divine Love.

Six weeks later, he had sold his rancher, I had sold mine, a new home was purchased that we both loved, and we married, October 17, 2009. Even though it was a day marked by ‘clouds’ for a number of reasons, we knew that we would face any and all clouds together. And, we did.

We were the love of each other’s lives. Laughter filled our home. Deep conversations filled our home. Joy and peace and hope filled our home. Divine Love filled our home. While he unexpectedly took leave of this Planet Earth on June 26th, 2016, he has never taken leave of my heart. In that lovely voice of his, perhaps he is calligraphically-rendering the six words of his reality … “It is well with my soul.”

Through a cloud of sadness, love still shines. Thank you little hummingbird. I am grateful.

The next time you see a hummingbird, may it bring comfort your way and in some way, be a sign of Divine Love in your life.

May you continue to rest in peace, my beloved Hans. Rest in peace.

© June Maffin
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