Regarding the letters (30 January) in response to Amy-Jane Beer’s Country Diary (27 January), after our mother died I visited my parents’ grave to check on the gravestone to which her name had been added after our father’s. It was midwinter with deep snow, and I arrived to find a robin perched on the stone. It didn’t fly away, but jumped down to the ground and then hopped on to my shoe. I was even able to touch his head. After a while he flew off. My father’s name was Robin Eden.
Tom Eden
Midhurst, West Sussex
• I was also moved by Amy-Jane Beer’s Country Diary about her sister’s death and the comforting visitations by two birds. At the funeral service of an old friend a few years ago, we filed out of the crematorium to the strains of The Lark Ascending, one of his favourite pieces of music. Guess what was the first thing we saw and heard as we entered the crematorium garden?
Lesley Atkinson
Newbury, Berkshire
• Here is another example of birds carrying messages of comfort after the death of a loved one. My birthday was three weeks after my mother died. That night I was speaking on the phone to my sister, telling her how painfully I felt my mother’s absence, when my husband came rushing up the stairs saying: “Quick, come into the garden!” The first nightingale song of the year was the best and most poignant present I could have received and, because of the timing, I had no doubt where it came from.
Belinda King
Sudbury, Suffolk
• My father had a deep respect for foxes. Shortly after his funeral, we spied a very handsome dog-fox stroll down our drive, walk up to his front door behind us and peer through the lowest panes for a few seconds. Then he sauntered off before leaping over a stone wall into a neighbouring field, and was gone.
Nick Barton
Templecombe, Somerset
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