Every morning, there's a cardinal out my bedroom window perched in a tree waiting for me.

Waiting for me to wake up and see he's perched in a shrub I planted for my mom. It's called an American Beauty Bush.

I planted the tree because it's the same tree that was at a park that I was looking at when I was told my mother had died.

It was the same day I got out of being locked up in jail in solitary confinement for 6 weeks. I'd lost 40 lbs in 6 weeks and looked like hell. I had lost everything I owned and ever worked for in my life within my ex's opioid driven brain to trick me into being locked up while he and his psycho whore stole everything. 33 years of my life suddenly swirled down a cosmic, universe sized drain at the speed of light into a black hole.

I was staring at the American Beauty bush having just learned my mother, my best friend in the whole world, died just one day before I got out of jail.

I knew I'd fallen into some sort of coma that would forever change me. I couldn't stop staring at the bright purple berries on the bush. I remember saying, I don't know what that bush is. I've never seen one before, but it's absolutely beautiful.

I went back to the park not long ago and some ignorant park employee destroyed and removed what was probably a 50 year old American beauty bush. There were 3 actually, and they killed all of them. Whoever did it has no idea the beauty they destroyed.

But now, every morning, my cat Velcro stares out the window looking at the cardinal perched in the Beauty Bush. I awake to see how love moves from one spirit to another, if you only plant the tree.