The Mourning Dove Told Me It’s Time to Move On

Photo by skeeze on pixabay

Yesterday, a Mourning Dove hit the patio door window, hard. I was upstairs and heard the bang. I went down and at first didn’t see anything. I asked my husband what happened and he told me a bird hit the window. I looked out and off to the side there was a Mourning Dove. It was still but conscious. It fluttered and then flew up and into a tree.

What does it mean? There is much symbolism around the Mourning Dove. But for me I see it as a wakeup call. It was trying to get our attention. I think all of us in this house are mourning in some way. Me, I am still mourning my mother and all the “what could have beens” of a painful past. But in some ways it is time for me to move forward. I’m not rushing the grieving process, but it feels as though I’ve been told to wake up now. It’s time to move again. To be still for too long brings rigidity. 

With all that happened last year, I found it difficult to lift my head sometimes let alone move forward. The precancer, the surgery, the ensuing infection and month long journey with harsh antibiotics, the forced move and finally my mother’s death. It was a transformative year and exhausting. I list them all to let myself know I’ve been through a lot and it’s okay that I’ve had a hard time moving forward.

The exhaustion of last year seems to have caused my fall into old patterns. For the first time in a few years, I find myself struggling with procrastination in my writing. I had found ways to move on from that pattern, but after last year it has come back, especially when writing the things that will move my career forward.  Since I’m only really seeing it in the past couple of months, maybe it is a way for me to see I am ready to move on. Procrastination can be a form of fear. It’s time, but I’m afraid.

And so the Mourning Dove intervenes, brings a shock. The Universe tries to shake me out of the fog and the fear. Mourning rattles us. It shakes things up. It also brings us down to earth and tells us to be still for a moment, but then at some point we must fly again. We must rise from the past and gain a new perspective.

Mourning will cross our path many times, and bring with it a greater understanding of ourselves and life. But it will not stay forever. It will not let us hold onto it forever. At some point hope comes and color filters back into life. At some point the gift is received and the heart begins to ask for more again.