Only three weeks before, at Christmas, Dad had given me a nesting boxhe'dmade: He had a special feeling for the brilliant creatures, and each springheeagerly awaited their return. Now I wondered, will he ever see one again?
It was a heart attack. Dad's third.
When I got to the hospital at 2 a.m., he was losing the fight. As thefamilyhovered at his bedside, he drifted in and out of consciousness.
Once he looked up at.Mom sitting beside the bed holding his hand. "Theywantme to let go," he said, ':but I can't. I don't want to."Mom patted his arm."Just hold on to me," she murmured.
The next morning the cardiologist met us in the waiting room. "He'sstillfighting,"the doaor said. "I've never seen such strengthMy youngest brotherwas only five when Ileft home 30 years ago. Relation-ships between my brothers-and sisters had become -frayed because of dis-tance and commitments to our ownfamilies. But Dad needed his childrennow, so we stayed at the hospital. Duringthe long vigil, we reminisced aboutour years at home.
A miner, Dad had not had an easy life. He and Mom raised six kids at atimewhen coal miners eamed as little as 25 cents a ton, and he loaded nine tonsaday. Even now, I'm sure we don't know most of the sacrifices they madeforus.
I remembered Dad's hard hat, its carbide lamp showing a fine pall ofcoaldust. Dad's graygreen eyes seemed large and wise as an owl's in hisblack-ened face. They often sparkled with devilment when they met yoursinconversation. .
Each evening he came home, eager to take up his crosscut saw or clawhammer.Dad could chock a piece of walnut on his lathe and deffly tum outa beautifulsalad bowl for Mom. He could build a cherry fold-top desk withfine, dovetaileddrawers as easily as he could fashion a fishing-line threaderout of an oldballpoint pen.
Dad bought our plain, two-story house from the coal company andimmedi~ately began to remodel it. Our house was the first on the hill to haveanindoor bathroom and hot water. He spent one summer digging out the clay-filledfoundation to install a coal furnace. We children no longer shivered inourbed-rooms on cold winter mornings.
We loved to watch him work. When Dad needed something, we ran to getit. Ifwe called it a "thingamabob he would say, "That's a nail set" (thetool forsinking the head of a nail below the surface of the wood). "It has aname. Useit."Dad carried a spirit of craftsmanship into every job and expeaed thesamefrom all six children. Each job had its claim on your best efforts. Andevertool had its name. Those were his principles, and we lived by them justaSDad did.
His playful spirit would set us to giggling-like the time he wasbuildingfireplace in the back yard. He sent us to look for the "stone-bender" heneedeto make the comer stones fit more evenly. "Guess I'll have to bendtheiamyself," he said when we retumed empty-handed. We saw the sparklein.bijeyes, and knew we'd been had.
Sitting in the hospitalwaitting room, I thought back to an afteon inDad'sworkshop several years ago..He was retired by then, but he kept busybuilding beautiful furniture, now for his children's homes. A volunteernaturalist,I was eager to tell him about the help bluebirds needed.
When the early settlers had cleared forests for farmland, I explained,blueLbirds flourished, nesting in fence-posts and orchard trees. But theirhabitatwas disappearing, and now the birds needed nesting boxesDad listened as-Ispoke, his hands gently moving a finegrained sand-paperover a piece of oak. Iasked him if he would like to build a box. He said hewould think about it.
Several weeks later he invited me into his workshop. There, on hisworkbench,sat three well-crafted bluebird nesting boxes. "Think the birdswilllike themT'
he asked.
"As much as I do,"I replied, hugging him. Dad put up the boxes, and thenextspring bluebirds nested in his yard. He was hooked.
Dad became quite an expert on the species. Bluebirds, he would say,areharbingers of hope and triumph, renowned for family loyalty. A pair willhavetwo or three broods a year, the earlier young sometimes helping to feedthe laternestlings.
The presence of his children must have boosted Dad's spirits after hisattackbecause he grew stronger and left the hospital on Valentine's Day WhenIvisited my parents at the end of March, Dad was confined to the downstairs.
But I noticed that he paused longer and longer at the windows facingtheback yard. I knew what he was hoping to see. And one day a bright flashofcolor circled the nesting box closest to our house.
"Well, it's about time the rascals showed, don't you think?" Dad said.
Sporting a resplendent blue head, back, wings and tail, a male bluebirdsanghis courtship song so passionately that we dubbed him "Caruso," aftertheItalian tenor. A female appeared, but rejected the nesting box. Carusofoundanother in the field below the yard. He circled the new box, singingfeverishly.

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