Scott McMorrow
Purple Finch. Cephas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
My connection to birds stretches back generations. Mom’s grandmother Lillar was a Native American of Cherokee heritage. Lillar used to net birds for Audubon in the West Texas rangelands. My uncle James Peacock, a master woodcarver, specialized in transforming inanimate blocks of wood into lifelike birds, mainly waterfowl and shorebirds.
When a traumatic brain injury landed me in a wheelchair due to left-sided paralysis, it was no surprise that my emotional savior would be a tiny bird.
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