Michael and Michelle

By Tim Law

Each and every year, like clockwork they come. Our tiny friends, Michael and Michelle O’Flightly. My daughter named them this when she was three, certain that they had flown all the way from Nanna O’Shay’s. Such a long way from Mount Gambier to County Cork and back again.

We called my mum up the night we first saw the pair in our garden.

“Are they yours, Nanna O’Shay?” asked my little Beth.

“What be ya talkin’ about, child?” asked my mum.

“The birds, Nanna,” sighed little Beth. “Michael and Michelle.”

“They are a pair of stints, ma,” I said. “Red-neck I think.”

“Aye,” laughed my mum. “Could be true, I’ve a pair in me garden gone missin’.”

“It is true, it is,” insisted Beth. “I told you mum, didn’t I mum.”

“Aye, you did,” I agreed.

Twenty years out of Ireland and still the accent popped up in the things I said and did.

“Thought me, perhaps they’d fallen foul of th’ foxes,” I heard Nanna O’Shay add.

“Mum!” I hissed. “You can’t tell a child such things.”

“Course ya can,” mum insisted with a gummy smile. “Seen it in a Disney film, circle o’ life or something.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t a movie about a fox and a hound?” I asked, trying to hide a smile.

“Noo lass, definitely lions in the one I seen, them an’ a big fat pig.”

I’d left my mum and daughter chatting together then, only half listening as they caught up on each other’s day. It made me happy to think that thanks to the internet I was able to keep some sort of relationship going across the generations even over such a vast distance. It was strange to think such tiny birds as our pair, Michael and Michelle could travel so far without thought of the dangers. It made me laugh to consider even in the height of our summer season the Mount could still get pretty cold and even rain. It never got as cold as an Irish winter though.

The following year we saw them again, the O’Shay pair. They had brought with them a few more Red-neck stints, the beginning of a flock. Little Beth had tried to sketch them all, my husband Dan was a bit of an artist and our daughter was trying to follow in his footsteps. Beth idolised her da.

“Look, mum!” Little Beth insisted that morning. “I think I’ve almost got the colours right.”

“Aye, me darling, just a little darker in some spots and a little lighter in others and I think you’ll have it,” I answered, in agreeance.

“What do you think they eat, mum?” Beth asked me.

We watched in amazement as one of the birds snapped at a tiny snail, cracking its shell. It then quickly gobbled up the mushy contents. Another pulled a wriggling, pink worm from the soil and fought with it until the fleshy piece of string was all eaten up.

“Eeeww,” said Beth.

“I doubt you’d ever see that in a Disney film,” were my words, said with a laugh.

Last year the birds were late. There was something wrong with the temperatures, too hot when the cold was supposed to come, or perhaps it were too cool still here. The weather man tried to explain it one night on the news but Little Beth was too young to understand and I was too old to care. Dan was in his art studio in the city working on some pieces for an exhibition, his theme the migration of birds. He had been inspired by our daughter’s drawings, in fact Beth’s sketches had ended up becoming one part of the big display. Our Little Beth had been thrilled to be asked and told her da straight away what she thought.

“Oh yes, da, I would love it,” Beth said with a twinkle in her eye. “Of course when you sell my pictures then I get all the money.”

Little Beth’s pictures did sell before the end of the viewing, something that inspired her to focus more seriously upon such a talent. We did not have the heart to tell Beth that it was Nanna O’Shay who bought all five pictures. Our little girl, nine years old and sharp as a tack noticed the pictures the next time she spoke with her Nanna. Instead of being disappointed, she was as proud as punch.

“I am so glad that you like them, Nanna,” gushed Little Beth.

“Course me darlin’,” I heard my mum reply. “Your stylin’ be so much better than yer da’s.”

“You mean at my age, Nanna?” asked Beth, innocently.

“At any age,” cackled my mum in reply.

It was a sad day when the birds flew off, headed north and home again. We had the upsetting news that Nanna O’Shay had taken a fall. Her Irish bones had stopped wanting to dance, her mind was too sharp and eager. Her neighbours had made the tough decision to find support for my mum and of that we were grateful. Life outside the home she had known for years quickly aged my mum and after only six months we had to say goodbye. Such a time was tough, especially when you live on opposite sides of the world. We all took comfort though in knowing that the birds would come back again to us and that there would be a little bit of Ireland that would help to keep us all sane. We would be watching out for Michael and Michelle O’Flightly and their flock, watching with smiling faces but heavy hearts.

Now that my daughter is ten, Little Beth is not so little anymore. We wait together, she and I, we wait in hope to see the birds return. We miss their sound and their funny antics. Just as much as we miss my mum. I like to imagine that Nanna O’Shay’s spirit has been born into one of the younger birds as the flock continues to grow and grow each year. We will need to watch and see, which of those new birds makes us laugh the most. That one we shall call Nanna. Nanna O’Shay.

Image by Alpsdake CC BY-SA 3.0