i am a bird now

In this picture is a stained-glass hummingbird that my great-aunt made with her two hands and me stretching out mine to try and fly. When the sunlight comes through just right, the bird begins to glow and my eyes turn into emeralds.

My great-aunt gave this bird to her sister, my grandmother, whom I cared for during the last year of her life until the evening that she died. But for twenty years this bird hung (or soared) above my grandmother's bed.

So, after my grandmother had died, and my great-aunt had disappeared into some far away place and became forgotten, I found this bird and brought it into my room and placed it near a window where the sunlight could touch it. And then I wrote a letter to my great-aunt which said this: "I know that your sister loved you very much. She kept the bird that you made above her bed for as long as I can remember. I'm sure that every time she saw it, she thought of you and smiled."