Hummingbird

B.B. King sang about his hummingbird- I've wondered if this was a code for something. Perhaps an innuendo of sorts. Regardless, that song is playing over and over in my head right now. I have been thinking about this hummingbird "incident" that happened over the weekend, looking for some spiritual or cosmic meaning behind what happened. I find it hard to believe that it was just what it looked like- a hummingbird searching the area for food or checking on a possible threat.
My family and I went to Wyalusing SP for a camping adventure this past weekend. It has been on my list of places to camp ever since I read about it in our Best Tent Camping in Wisconsin book. Perhaps I have also heard people talk about it as well. It is an amazing place! It is now one of our top favorite places in our great state. The confluence of the MIssissippi and Wisconsin Rivers is truly a marvel and given the recent flooding (and still flooded slough) it is a wonder that a city like Prairie du Chien can thrive there. We spotted bald eagles, a soaring flock of white pelicans, and countless small song birds. Our long hike took us along the ridge overlooking the rivers, down to the Mississippi Slough , up another ridge and back to the top where the campground lies. The submerged tree trunks and tips of grasses poking up out of the deep water were mind boggling. Are these species adapted to survive this kind of flooding? Have they lost their leaves early because of this or are they dying? What will the area look like over the coming weeks and months. Will the water recede before winter? Imagine frozen water creeping up the sides of these massive trees, hiding the ground or water ways below. Such mystery. All of these natural wonders and hardly any hummingbirds that I was told were witnessed by a fellow colleauge on her trip years ago. Apparently my husband saw several of these tiny winged beings out of the ranger station window while checking us in.
We were packing up our campsite on Sunday morning and all of a sudden Steve said, there's a hummingbird. Like a flipped switch we all stopped and watched it zooming over and around the shrubs. Then it zoomed towards Steve and stopped several feet away, hovering at eye level. A few seconds passed and then it shot to the right and paused eye-level in front of me. Another few seconds and it shot to the right again and paused in front of Emma. For those brief seconds I felt my mind and heart trying to connect to this bird. Whose soul was lingering there? Whose ghostly mirage was linked to the beating of those wings, seeking some answer to their unknown question. We are fine- we are great I wanted to say. But I also wanted to ask, who are you? We miss you!
Skeptics will surely say it was just a bird. But I don't know. I want it to have been my grandmother, just checking in to make sure we are okay. To let us know that she is okay.
Time could have stopped long enough for me to count the beats of the hummingbird's wings.