The Bird of Paradise Falls Silent.

Strelitzia! Strelitzia! What an interesting sounding word. Almost sounds like a toast of joy at an Italian wedding. It is however a thing of great beauty. A flower no less and not just any flower, a flower so beautifully bizarre as to actually look like a little bird perched on a plant. Thus I assume it was given the common name of the bird of Paradise. I was able to see one when I visited the botanical gardens in Montreal, nature can be breathtaking. ........................ Even more wonderful is how I found out about the flower. It happened back when I was first blogging, when I was trying to get my gay legs under me. I was part of a group of blog writers who read and commented on each other's blogs. One day these kind and encouraging comments began to appear on our blogs. The odd thing was, it was a woman! She had stepped into our realm of gay men. Quickly she gained our trust and friendship with her thoughtful comments. She gave herself the blog tag birdie. ............................................ She eventually explained that she had lost a brother who was gay and was saddened by the fact he thought he had to hide his sexuality from her because she was a Christian, however she was a loving Christian, not one of those clobber you over the head with a bible Christians. I became friends with her and we exchanged emails, she was someone I looked forward to hearing from. Like most of my blog friends, I lost touch when I moved to the country. ...................................... A little while ago another past blog friend sadly informed me that birdie had died. She had been battling cancer and it was finally too much. I since have lost that email account so whatever was said between us is gone now. ............................................ I was not sure if it was proper for me to write a post about her. Meaning there are many people who would be devastated by her loss in the real world and I only knew her through the internet. However some of my old posts have been called up on my blog feed and I have been reading them as a way to look back at my progress over the years. Often in the comment section, there she is, supporting me, cheering me on, encouraging me, laughing with me and consoling me over the loss of my father. It may sound strange but I was looking for permission to blog about her, but from who? Then I think it came, strange to say but a post came up called Why Blog, and in the comments I convinced her to finally start a blog as she kept saying that she would one day. I had forgotten about that, it was my moment to realize that maybe in some small way I had affected her life as well. .............................................. I just have to say, Oh you beautiful beautiful lady, if there really is a paradise I hope it's filled with people like you, thank you for the support when I needed support, thank you for the validation when I needed validation, thank you for the friendship when I needed a friend. I am truly saddened by your loss and there is a noticeable silence in the world, a silence that happens when the bird of paradise sings no more.