The Hummingbird That Became a Sign
The Hummingbird That Became a Sign
For a lot of grieving people, cardinals mean something. A cardinal shows up, and somewhere deep down, you think: that's them, checking in.
My husband Tom loved cardinals so much he tried to work one into the name of his own business. But cardinals were never my sign. Mine were hummingbirds — and this week I finally told the real story behind that, on the podcast.
It starts with a twentieth-anniversary trip we almost didn't take. Our youngest was two, I didn't have a sitter lined up for ten days away, and I wasn't even sure we were "supposed" to go on something that indulgent. Tom, who looked for signs his whole life the way a kid looks for the first star at night, told me to pray for one. I asked God for a hummingbird.
What followed was a chain of moments I still can't fully explain — a crayon drawing from my daughter I dismissed too quickly, a spontaneous day trip to London, and a hummingbird batik hanging in a royal residence that stopped me cold. I took the trip. It turned out to be our last anniversary before Tom died. After his funeral, a hummingbird hovered over the bushes while I sat on my brother-in-law's front steps, trying to find a quiet minute alone.
That symbol eventually became the name behind the Phoenix Path, the four-week mentorship I built for widows — a picture of something small and alive, burned down to nothing, and rising anyway.
But I also asked myself the harder question, the one I imagine some of you are asking too: is any of this actually compatible with our Catholic faith, or is it just superstition wearing a nicer coat? I don't pretend to have that fully sorted out in one episode — next week I go much deeper into what the Church actually teaches about signs, discernment, and the difference between the two. This week is just the honest, personal story.
Listen to the full episode: "Signs — Hummingbirds, Answered Prayer, and the Line Between Faith and Superstition" — Episode 10 of Mosaic: Beauty in Every Broken Piece.
See the batik piece here
