Burying a bird is not something I thought I would be doing this evening. I had just pulled my dinner out of the oven and sat down with fork in hand for a quiet night alone after working the weekend when I looked out the window, and there at my back porch step lay a petite yellow bird, belly up, twiggy black feet sticking out. I am not a mystic. I do not look for signs from the universe to inform my decisions. I have grown some sense in my head, and over the last year or so I have worked hard pruning that growth. But birds don’t often choose my doorstep as their final resting place. At first glance, I worried that I had been issued a warning, one I would listen to.

I’m about to make a big change in my life. My husband and I are moving to a new state, a new region of the country. I have never visited the place I will call my home in a month. We are young and childless, without debt and fiercely determined to make a great life for ourselves. We believe we have the means to do it. I hope we have the sense. I hope I have the strength. Whatever happens, I know that I am the only one who can help myself, and I must face the unknown so I can learn, so I can live. With this in mind, I’ve been gaining confidence in myself that wasn’t there before. But then, to see a dead bird at my doorstep, I thought, yikes, have I got it all wrong? What else could I think with death at my door?

A bird’s death is a remarkable sight to come upon, especially in a place as personal to me as the path I walk each day. And when it is still beautiful lying there, untouched by another animal, unscorched by the sun, each miraculous feather still intact with all the shine and gloss of life, it is heart-breaking. Startled by the somberness and serenity of this sight, but too hungry to let my dinner grow cold, I covered the bird with a paper towel and placed rocks on top to steady it against the wind. If I was going to sit and eat before I did anything about the bird, I couldn’t have it in my sight without being uneasy. That’s what it was: uneasiness. Not dread, not fear. It would take more than a bird on the doorstep to convince me that my life was in shambles. Maybe ten birds, that would really do it.

I have a friend who creates taxidermy art, so I asked her if she would like a dead bird. She told me most birds are protected by law, and even if she could use it, she didn’t have the room in her freezer full of various dead things. Well, that was the end of my list of people to call who might be interested in a dead bird. So I took care of it as a chance to practice the lessons I had been learning: that the unexpected will happen to me and I am the only one who can face it if I want to be wise, experienced and strong. And that’s exactly what I said to myself as I slipped on a pair of weathered and neglected gardening gloves.

It turns out that the internet is useful and efficient for summarizing a wide selection of texts describing omens and their interpretations. Before I went to work digging in the dirt, I thought I would settle my curiosity. I searched “dead bird at my doorstep” online, and the results shocked and delighted me. Apparently and commonly, the meaning of this phenomenon is to signal the end of a struggle and point to a fresh start, a new beginning. Nothing could flash more brilliantly in my face than the discovery that this bird applies to my life in the present most exactly and appropriately and joyously. My husband worked relentlessly for months to prove that his skills were valuable in his industry, and his success is the reason for our move. His endurance is the reason for my newfound belief in myself. He modeled strength and bravery amidst the peril of uncertainty and doubt, and now his trial is over, and he is the victor, and we are beginning a new life. This bird was not a warning, but a mysterious, marvelous confirmation. According to some cosmic plan, this bird dropped from the sky and I was reminded that hope replaces death.