When the Deathbird Sings

A lifelong friend of mine died yesterday.  Cancer is a terrible thing.

So very many people that I have loved in this life have passed away, but the deathbird didn't sing for all of them.  I remember the sound though.  So lonely.  So eerie and odd.  Not your normal bird call. 

If you hear it, the hair will stand on the back of your neck, your gooseflesh will rise, and you will wonder, if in times forgotten the wail of the Banshee heard screeching across the moors of the old country, was really just a deathbird singing its awful song.

I suspect it is some type of rare and dreaded owl sitting in a tree outside your bedroom.  Warning you that someone you love is about to die.

I've heard of deathbirds all my life, so I find it odd that if you Google them, there is little information available.  People don't speak of them much, I guess.  

Before my father's death in 1962, a bird sang every night for weeks outside his window.  He told me, when it would wake us up at night, "That is a deathbird.  It sings for me." It also sang at random times during the day, giving us pause, and hushing the whispered conversations in Daddy's sickroom.  What little breeze that stirred in that smothering heat brought the sound inside to us. Daddy did not survive the summer that year.  

We looked for that bird, but we never found it, although the sound it made was crystal clear.  Cold in the heat of the night.  

I've heard that sound several times in this life.  If I hear it more than one or two days/nights in a row, I always hear of the death of a loved one a few days later.  

Let's hope I never hear it ever again.  

I've never seen a deathbird, but I imagine it might look like this.