Phoenix Rising (2)

The months that followed were fraught with tension as we studied for our A levels, but

we rarely spent a day without seeing each other, even just for a few minutes. When

making our plans for university, we decided that we would study near each other if

possible, but not necessarily in the same city. This would give us both a little

independence, but also mean we could continue to see each other frequently, which

was a priority for both of us. Chris’ parents were a little dubious about this, suggesting

to Chris that he go where his studies took him, not where I was, but he told them that

I was the most important person in his life, and he wanted to be near me. I think my

parents were slightly amused, deciding that time would tell what was important and

what wasn’t. In the event, Chris went to Edinburgh to Veterinary college and I went to

Stirling University to study English.
 
About three years later when I had just finished my finals, I got back to my flat to find

a message waiting for me. One of my flatmates had taken a telephone message from

Chris’s dad, telling me to get to Edinburgh quickly as Chris had been involved in an car

accident. He was critical. Flinging a few essentials together I had driven to Edinburgh,

my mind in a haze. I’m not sure how I managed to drive. My mind was all over the

place. My thoughts were so erratic and my body seemed to be in it’s own world,

disconnected from me, yet somehow I had switched to auto pilot and was driving

seemingly as normal. Looking back now, I realise that couldn’t have been the case, but

no one was going to convince me otherwise, or stop me getting to Edinburgh. At one

point, I started to cry, and was having real difficulty seeing the road. I decided to stop

for a moment or two, and as luck would have it, a layby appeared out of nowhere. I

wiped my eyes with a tissue, blew my nose and then looked out of the window. As I

gazed up at the skies, I felt my stomach leap. The clouds were moving fast, too fast. I

knew that as there was no wind to speak of, yet they were moving at great speed, and

in all directions. This was strange too, but I hardly had time to reflect on this before I

became aware that the clouds were forming a pattern, no an object. It was a phoenix. I

watched in awe. I must be dreaming this. I must be in some kind of altered state. I

blinked, pinched my arm, shook my head, but the vision remained. I stared at it, and

realised that not only was it a bird made of clouds but the bird was red and gold, not

so much deep colours but definite tints. It was amazing. Then as quickly as it

appeared, it dissipated, just like the smoke had all those years ago, and then, nothing.

Just normal blue grey sky and clouds.
Stunned I sat silently for a moment or two, contemplating this experience; trying to

make sense of it. Then I realised that the tension I had felt before parking the car had

eased and I now felt more able to cope. I remembered that the Phoenix had made me

feel safe and hopeful for the future last time I saw it, and I was sure that was what I

was meant to fell now. Chris would be alright. All I had to do was get there safely and

be with him.
 
I got to hospital and found that Chris had been moved off the critical list and the staff

were fairly confident he would recover quickly. He did, and returned to college two

months later in fine fettle. I didn’t tell him about the phoenix. I don’t know why not.

Somehow it just didn’t seem necessary, but for the second time in a few years the

Phoenix had given me the strength to go on and believe in the future.
Two years later we were married, and two years after that I became pregnant with our

first child. Chris had become a partner in his father’s practice so we had moved back to

our home town, to the relief of our parents, especially when they knew they were about

to become grandparents. Then disaster struck. Without warning, my baby decided to

make a premature entrance into the world. He was very small but proved himself strong

and survived. However, I struggled after a long labour and became very ill, having

caught some virus shortly after the birth. I remember being in a feverous state and

unaware of who was with me, or what was happening. One night, apparently a week

after our son was born, I awoke to find Chris at my bedside. He was stroking my hand

and smiling down at me. ‘Hello. You’ve come back. I knew you would. The phoenix told

me!’ Too weak to reply, I just smiled, having been given the reassurance I needed. I

knew I would survive.
A few days later, Chris sat on the bed with his arm around my shoulders as I cradled

our first born.
‘I didn’t want to register him until you were well enough to tell me what you would like

to call him, but I think there is only one name we can call him, don’t you?
We smiled at each other. Chris told me that on the night that I had recovered he had

gone for a walk in a nearby park. He had been sitting at the side of my bed for nearly a

week and felt the need to get some fresh air once in a while. On this occasion, he had

wandered further than usual and ended up in one of the city parks. The park had a lake,

and on a cold November evening, there was a heavy mist hanging over the still water.

It was lit by an ornamental street lamp and the light caught his attention as he

approached the lake. He had stopped to look and found a bench nearby. As he absently

watched the lake, his mind back at the hospital with me, he suddenly felt a heat. The

cold air around him was replaced by warm air, travelling slowly passed him as if

someone were holding an electric fan to his face. Slowing he broke from his reverie and

became aware that the warm air was visible as red and gold strands of mist, which was

wafting lazily around the lake making beautiful patterns. Suddenly, just as he realised

that he was seeing something extraordinary, the water on the lake became ruffled and

disturbed and to his amazement, the coloured mist appeared to organise itself into a

shape, a form which he knew he’d seen before. It was the phoenix, rising from the

waters of the lake. Chris said it was spectacular. Fire and water, joined in a wonderful

performance which he suspected was for his viewing only. It lasted no longer than thirty

seconds or so, and then, like my spectre, it was gone, lost in the air around it. Chris

knew that I would recover, and sure enough, later that night, this was the case. I then

told him how I had seen the Phoenix after his accident. We agreed that out son

couldn’t be called anything other than Phoenix.

Phoenix Rising (3)

As I listened to Chris telling anecdotes from our family’s past, I felt a little giddy. I must have rocked a little, because Astra leaned across and gently held my arm.
‘Are you ok Mum? You look a bit pale’
‘I’m fine Sweetheart’, I whispered back, but come to think of it, I did feel a little odd. I turned my attention back to Chris, but soon became lost in my own thoughts again, as I remembered that Astra alone was the only member who had not seen the Phoenix. We had not told her about it and had sworn Phoenix to secrecy when it became clear that he had seen the bird too. As a child he was happy and contented, but we had a couple of fretful days, when he lost his playmate, his bear. Jack was a special bear, at least Phoenix thought so, and when he suddenly became lost, poor Phoenix was distraught. We searched high and low for two days. Every nook and cranny was torn about and scrutinised, indoors and out, but no Jack. On the third night, Phoenix cried himself to sleep again. My heart broke for him. I had been on the phone that day trying to find an identical bear to replace Jack, in the hopes that Phoenix would not be able to tell it was a substitute, but so far I had not been successful in locating another bear. At last he slept, quite soundly I thought, considering his distress. In the morning I heard him wake up, shouting for me. I rushed in, ready to soothe him, but he was beaming.
‘Jack’s coming back’.
‘Is he? How do you know?’.  I was concerned that he was going to be disappointed, but his next words blew me away.
‘The big bird said he was coming back today. In Grandma’s car.’
‘The big bird?’
‘A big, big bird like an eagle in the sky’. He pointed to the window. ‘I saw him fly up to the moon’.
The curtains were still drawn across. Clearly he had been dreaming, but I knew instantly that the Phoenix had come to him. I gathered him up in my arms, kissed him and said that that was good news and I hoped that Jack would come back that day.
‘He will’, my son assured me, and scrambled down from my arms to run excitedly to tell his dad the news.
The amazing part about this was that everything came true. Jack did come back, and in Grandma’s car. Two days previously, my mother had bought her mother to visit. My grandmother was in the later stages of dementia at that time, and it looked as if she had taken a liking to Jack and carried him out to the car when she and Mum returned home. She had left him in the car, and Mum, not having used the car since, never thought to look there. No reason to. So Jack lay there for two days, until Mum used the car that morning and found him. She immediately cancelled her aromatherapy massage and came straight to us with the bear. Phoenix was ecstatic and told her all about the bird. I did wonder if she had seen the Phoenix, but there wasn’t even a glimmer of recognition as her grandson related his dream, so I concluded she hadn’t ever had the vision. We suspected that Phoenix saw the bird several times, but we never pressed him about it until he was in his teens. He suddenly mentioned it one day. Luckily Astra wasn’t around. Chris sat him down and told him about our experiences. Phoenix was very calm about it, saying that he clearly remembered that first dream and had felt relief after the vision. Likewise the second time he had seen the phoenix, when he was being bullied at school. The bird had come to him in another dream, this time the bird carried a book which had the word, ‘Bullies’ written on it. Phoenix had taken this as a sign that he should research the subject, and had gone to the library and read up on the bullying, which had given him the necessary knowledge and confidence to deal with the situation. Chris and I had explained that we didn’t want Astra to be told. If the Phoenix was meant to reveal itself to her, better let it happen naturally, rather than plant images in her head.
So Astra to my knowledge had not seen the bird. Perhaps she was not able to see it, like my mother, or maybe it hadn’t been necessary for her to have a sighting. Perhaps we would never know.
 
Loud clapping and cheering brought me back to the here and now, and I joined in, smiling at my wonderful husband. We had never faltered in our love for each other. I hoped Phoenix and Astra would be just as happy. Astra had been married for nearly a year and we liked her husband. I expected them to have a good life together. Phoenix was as yet single, but he would settle down soon. He was a good and kind person and women loved him. When the time was right…
Ohh! A sharp pain hit me in my chest. And then another. Oh my god…what’s happening. I felt my legs go under me and then another sharp searing pain before I blacked out. Yet I was still there. I could hear everyone around me, bending over me, concerned. Chris was asking for an ambulance. Bless him. Too late this time Sweetheart! His sweet face was desperate with worry. I wish I could soothe him. Suddenly I realised I was seeing as well as hearing, but I was no longer in pain. In fact I felt at peace, but I wasn’t happy that these wonderful people were in so much pain. Astra was crying at my side, and Phoenix just stood with tears in his eyes. Astra began to pull at my arms.
‘Mum, get up, come on get up. You’ll be ok. You’ll be fine’.
I heard Chris ask Sam, her husband to take her away. Sam pulled her gently to the back of the room and held her, trying to comfort her. As I looked down at the scene below me, I was surprised to see smoke rising up somewhere below me, red and yellow. No!  Gold smoke. Did someone have some incense? Suddenly Astra went berserk.
‘Look, Mum’s changing into a bird. She’s a bird. Do something. Someone do something, she’s on fire’.
I saw Chris’s face turn and look up at me and recognition flit across his features. Then it hit me. Was I the phoenix? Or was the phoenix in us all, but some know it and others don’t. I looked down and saw my feathers, gold edged, glittering through the smoke, and my red coloured plumage covering what I could see of my chest. Yes, I was in the care of the bird, and I knew that my husband and son would understand and pass this understanding onto Astra. No one else in the room saw anything untoward and they appeared to think Astra was in some sort of shock, so didn’t react in anything other than a sympathetic way when she lunged for my body again. This time Chris and Phoenix took her and cradled her, murmuring something I couldn’t quite catch, but I knew from her face that they had told her. The fear had gone and her eyes travelled upwards taking in the whole spectacle. As I looked at my daughter, I knew that new life was imminent and that she would come to understand very soon.
Strange that no-one else in the room was cognisant of what was happening.
Content that my family would be safe, I knew that it was time to let the phoenix finish what it had started and I released the last breath, letting the divinity draw me upwards to prepare me for my new life.

©DF 2008