Though I had a grandfather while I was growing up, I wasn’t close to him. Lucky for me, a man named Richard Griffin filled that void.
A month before I was born, my parents bought a cottage on Lake Tillery in Stanly County (rural North Carolina). Next door, an insurance salesman, Richard, owned a summer house. By the time I was old enough to remember, he was living in the house full time, enjoying all of the wonderful things about lake living — fishing, gardening, walking his cocker spaniel (sweet Ginny) all the time and sitting on the porch with a beer during the sunset — and often before.
Almost every time my family went to the lake house, Richard was there. He watched me grow up, meeting my different friends and boyfriends during every stage of my life. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect for both of us. His daughter was grown and had moved to England, and his son lived more than an hour away, so he didn’t get to see his grandkids as much as he would have liked. I think having me around helped fill a void for him, too.
Richard and I would sit on his porch, and he would tell me stories. One day he told me about the bluebirds. An avid reader of The Charlotte Observer, he’d always leave his paper on our front porch for my mom after he devoured it. One day he read an article about the bluebirds disappearing from the area.
Richard loved birds, evidenced by the birdhouses by his pier, but this article compelled to do more than put a birdhouse in his yard. He wanted to bring the bluebirds back, so he proceeded to build bluebird birdhouses all over the county in the hopes of restoring the bluebird population. Richard succeeded, and now bluebirds are commonplace in Stanly County.
I love this story for so many reasons — because he shared it with me, because he built me a bluebird house that stands in my front yard and because he read about a problem and did something about it.
Richard passed away more than a few years ago, and every time I see a bluebird, I know that it’s him checking in on me, making sure that I’m doing something about whatever problem I’ve recently read about.
P.S., the bird’s name is Tillery.