My dad has this supersonic connection to sandhill cranes. It started a few years ago, when he didn’t even remember their name. “What are they called again? The storks” he’d ask me.
He’ll be in his kitchen or living room in March or November when all the windows are closed and the storm windows are down, in the middle of a story, and suddenly he’ll stop and say, “The cranes are out.” Everybody gets quiet, listening. “I don’t hear anything,” I’ll say. He opens the front door, and as we walk out, he points to a tiny cluster of spots in the sky, and I hear the cranes’ distinctive, ricketing call.
He can also imitate their trill really well, which is kind of a bizarre sound for a person to make. It’s like he understands them and can innately speak their language.
Sometimes, morbidly, I think I already know what I’ll remember about people after they die. I know I will think of him every time I hear a sandhill. I already do.
Photo: cranes near Kearney & Gibbon, NE