That first winter after Kate died was the most difficult winter of my life. Outside everything was covered knee-deep in snow from mid-December through the end of March. The world felt dead. Our home out in the country was miles from the nearest neighbors. When the weather was nice enough to go outside the silence was overwhelming. No birds chirping, no dogs barking. I felt alone. I was alone.
Inside our home the loneliness found its way into every corner. There was no way to escape it. Everywhere I looked I saw Kate. In the kitchen I saw the set of cookware we picked out when we were first married. I started avoiding the kitchen because of them. Seeing how little they had been used made me sad.
In the living room hung Kate's paintings. Kate wasn't much of an artist, but her paintings really reflected what was inside her. She liked to use bright colors, and lots of them. Her paintings on the walls looked more like they had been done by a kindergarden class. They were mostly paintings of flowers, one that sort of resembled our house, and one of a bluebird. That bluebird was my favorite. It hung on the wall opposite the antique rocking chair we picked up in a yard sale down the road when we first bought the house. I spent nearly that entire winter in that rocking chair looking at Kate's bluebird. The bird was perched on a windowsill and looking in at a pie sitting on the other side of the glass. That entire winter I couldn't keep from wondering why Kate hadn't painted the window open for that bird.
I spent hours on end each day staring at that painting and thinking about that bird. Thinking about Kate. In time I sort of forgot that it was only a painting and would wonder why the bird didn't just fly away. Why was it there everyday looking at that pie? Why didn't it understand that it could never have that pie? I wanted so many times to walk over to that painting and open the window for that bird. But I knew it was only a painting, and that I could not open that window any more than that bird could fly away.
One day I began talking to the bird. I wasn't crazy. At least I don't think I was. I knew it was a painting. I knew that. It was Kate's painting. I always knew that. But I just started talking to that bird one morning. I hadn't spoken to anyone in months. I suppose we all just need someone to talk to sometimes. Even if it's just a bird of oil on canvas.
The first time I talked to him I just told that bird how stupid he was, day after day, waiting for that window to open. The next morning I apologized. He wasn't stupid. I told him it wasn't his fault. It was Kate's fault for forgetting to leave the window open for him. I then felt obligated to tell him more about Kate. To explain to him what a good and decent person she was, and that he shouldn't be angry at her for forgetting to leave the window open for him. I told him that Kate was always forgetting little things like that. I told him how one time the winter before, Kate had bought this antique bed-warmer and wanted to surprise me by warming the bed for me. But she forgot that she had put it in the bed and I sat on it when I was taking off my socks. I laughed when I told him about that. I could tell he understood and he wasn't angry at her anymore.
For the rest of the winter I talked to that bird every day. I told him lots of stories about Kate. I told him how we met while standing in line at a book signing. How our first date was a hockey game at Madison Square Garden. How I proposed to her three months later. And how she was diagnosed with leukemia three months after that. I told him it was Kate's idea to move out to the country. That she had spent her whole life in the big city and wanted to feel free, feel like there was a great big world all around her. The doctors had told her that she would not survive the illness. They couldn't say how much time she had, but not more than a couple of years at best. I had always hoped that they were wrong. But they were right.
I told him that I had wanted to sell the house after she died. I couldn't stand the thought of staying there alone. But the winter had just set in and there was no way to sell a house like that in the winter. So I determined to settle in for the winter and put the house on the market in the spring. I had no idea how hard that winter would be.
I reassured my new blue friend that he would not have to stay with the house. I wasn't sure where I would go next, but wherever I would go he would be welcome to come with me.
With our growing conversations (one-sided though they were) I thought less about why Kate had painted that window closed, but did not forget about it entirely. I still wondered about that from time to time. And then early one morning in the beginning of April I was sitting in that rocking chair, about to say good morning to my friend when I heard a small tap at the window next to me. It was a bluebird. You can imagine my amazement and surprise. Briefly I had actually thought that the bird in the painting had come to life! I had to look back at the painting to make sure this wasn't true. The bird was still in the painting, still looking through the window, still wanting that pie. So I turned back to the window. What did this bluebird want? Why had it come to my window?
I wanted immediately to rush over and open the window for the bird. But I was afraid that I would scare the bird away so I stopped before I even got out of my chair. I sat there in silence for a minute looking back and forth from the bird at my window, to the bird on my wall. I had wanted for so long to open that window for the bird in the painting. And now that I had a real bird on the other side of a real window, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I didn't want to lose either bird. And that's when I realized why Kate had painted the window closed.
Kate had painted that painting before I had met her. Kate had told me how she felt growing up her entire life like she was always on the outside of life looking in. And while the loss of Kate was the most painful thing I've ever endured, the two years we spent together had been the happiest in my life. Kate had embraced life during those two years. She had embraced me.
I walked over to the window and opened it. The bluebird instantly flew from the window, but perched lightly on a low branch of the tree just outside. I looked out at the world. Spring had come and I hadn't even noticed. I could hear all kinds of sounds: the wind passing through the trees, the birds singing, a dog barking in the distance.