When I woke up, I was a bird. I pulled my beak out from under my wing and looked around.

Well, this is a fine thing. The last thing I remember was begging my husband to pull the ridiculous tube out of my throat. I couldn’t talk. I was telling him with my eyes, both of us crying as he took my wedding rings off of my fingers before they wheeled me away for surgery.

I hurt. I was woozy. Heaven knows what drugs they had in me at that point. And I didn’t want this bypass. Whatever happened to consent? Then they must have sedated me. Blackness. No dreams. There were times I heard voices, but who could tell what was real?  My grandson calling me.  My daughters crying but talking to me, at least, instead of about me. One said I had to keep fighting. I tried to shake my head. No. No fighting. They told me it was snowing once. They cried. I couldn’t tell them to stop stop crying it’s okay I need to rest just let me rest.

Then nothing. No pain. No thought. No body. It was freer and more peaceful than anything I’ve ever known.

And now, this. My feathers are white. My bill is long. How odd to have eyes on the sides of my head. I preen a bit and some movement catches my eye. I snatch the silver fish from the water without thinking. It wiggles as I gulp it down whole, and it slides down my long neck, its fins poking my throat a bit. Well. Hurray for instinct.

I walk through the water, lifting my long bird legs and placing my long bird toes back down into the mud. There’s a loud crashing through the grass onshore, children running and laughing. I leap into the air and flap my wings. Flying! Who would have thought I could do THIS a week ago? It’s as glorious as I’d imagined. I circle the water where I just stood and fly higher. The sun glints off of the surface of the water in sparkles of light. My wings catch the light too, until I fairly glow.

I look down to see cars, rooftops, trees. I fly over my house. I can still recognize the roads and landmarks, but I have to concentrate. I can feel waves of sadness coming from my family. I fly over my older daughter’s home where everyone has gathered. A black limousine waits to take them to the funeral. My funeral. I perch in a tree a few blocks away. My keen bird eyes can see fine from here.

When they walk outside, dressed in their best, moving slowly, like zombies, I will them to look up, to see me. The grandchildren look straight at me right away. Just before she ducks into the car, my youngest daughter looks up at me in the tree, puzzled, and then almost smiling. But someone in the car says something to her, and the mask she was wearing reappears.

I don’t need to see anything else today. It’s too painful to watch them and I don’t know how to show them I’m all right.

Over the next few weeks, I fly and eat fish and see the places where I lived from the air.  There are more trees and there’s more water than I knew when I was tethered to the ground. It’s harder to remember words and people, but I still spot my family members now and then and almost remember something important.  I fly circles over a spot not knowing why and then see my children and there’s an instant when I know who they are. Then it’s gone and my mind is all telegraphic messages about wind and temperature and food.

I flew over a blue car and felt I had to follow it. I saw the driver look up at me when she passed the marsh where I was standing—posing as if for a photograph. She smiled at me. She smiles when I cross the interstate and her car slides under my flight path. Once I flew over a football field where hundreds of people were seated on the field in black caps and gowns. I could feel her there, and she was crying. Just to make her laugh, I flew over the dais and pooped on the stage.

One day she’ll feel better about things. One day she’ll be a bird.