A Christmas Crow: The Heartwarming Tale of a Murder

“Looking back, it was one of the most surreal places to sit two days before Christmas. The man in the grey suit and the holly printed tie was a far cry from the visit with Santa I had been looking forward to. But Momma had coaxed me into my new Sunday dress, filling me with promises of gifts from Great-Grandma Zelma.

My memories of my great-grandma are few and sporadic. She had been eccentric, a bit too eccentric for much of our family. I now realize how shocked my parents must have been to receive an invitation to the reading of her last will and testament. Even more so when the executor called out my name, Judith-Jane Burns.

I was bequeathed with the only thing I could recall about the old woman; her crow. At the age of six, my great-grandma’s dying wish had been for me to keep her odd, feathered companion. I was thrilled. My parents were not.

I begged. I pleaded. I pulled on my momma’s sleeve until eventually they gave in. Raph the crow was going home with us to stay.

Momma had a soft spot for Raph, even if she tried to hide it behind a scowl. That’s why, our next stop was the little bookstore that once stood on the corner of Robert Street and Lafayette. Where she sent my daddy in for a book on bird diets while she turned around to impress upon me the responsibility of a pet. Great-Grandma hadn’t purchased a single book over the five years she had owned Raph, hadn’t left anything to help us take care of the bird.

But soon after the book, came crickets and oversized cartons of berries and bags of seeds. Raph was king of the house. King of his cage.

Christmas that year was a blur. The most interesting gift had come two days before and I would spend hours watching him pick at his seeds and warble out a tune when offered a juicy blueberry. Soon I noticed Momma humming the same tune and Daddy tapping his pen to a stunted version against the kitchen table.

It amazed me, how they so quickly picked up on Raph’s song. Until one day the radio began churning out the same melody, only with lyrics. I ran into the kitchen, bare feet smacking against the cold floor.

“Momma!” I had yelled in excitement. My little fingers shoved up against the radio speakers, eyes wide.

She’d whipped around, hand over her chest, and almost knocked the cookies she had been baking off the rack.

“What’s the matter, J.J.?”

I had given my momma quite the fright, but six-year-olds rarely notice things like that, and all I cared about at that moment was the gentle chorus coming through that old boom box. I can tell you, that song never did stop being my favorite come the Holidays.

“It’s Raph’s song!” I’m sure I believed that to be true. Believed someone had happened upon our window as the bird was singing in his angsty croon.

“Honey, that’s Bing Crosby. This song comes on every year.”

“But Raph sings it, Momma.”

I remember the shake of her head. Dark, copper curls that swayed against her cheeks whenever she chalked up my words to my imagination. My parents were too busy to spend any real time with our bird. No one ever heard him sing, except for me.

Just as I continued to hear Raph croon a Christmas classic, I also overheard things my parents tried to keep from my young ears. Adults often forget how sharp a child’s ears are.

Arguments would start and I would cover my ears with my hands. Pretend I never heard their heated words thrown at each other’s hearts. Until one night, I heard my momma mention Raph.

“—shouldn’t be trapped in cages, Clay! They should be allowed to stretch their wings and fly where and when they desire. Not be forced to look and sound pretty for people on command.”

Her words had rattled something inside me. I looked to Raph, sitting in his cage and grooming his feathers, and tried to remember the sight of those feathers stretched out from bar to bar. I couldn’t. It was over two weeks of watching that bird before I realized how very small his cage was. I’m not ashamed to admit I wept that night. I cried because I knew what I needed to do and already the thought had hurt my heart.

Come morning, I grabbed a handful of Raph’s favorite blueberries and one by one slipped them through the bars and watched him as he greedily ate from my fingers. I never wanted to forget what he looked like, being so happy with me. Even though I knew we still had time. It was only January. I didn’t know how long.

I spent the whole morning flipping through that book on birds. It was all very technical, big words that I could not yet read, but there were pictures. My fingers traced one that looked like Raph. The crow sat atop a nest of eggs in a tree with lush, green leaves. If that was what made birds happy, then that’s what I wanted for him, I told myself.

At lunch, I carried the book to the table with me. The tips of my fingers tucked in like bookmarks to hold my place. I could tell my daddy was about to scold me and tell me to put it away, but I hugged it to my body and let a few stray tears fall.

“How long ‘til the trees are green?”

Daddy stopped short of what he was about to say and looked back down at the book in my arms.

“Unless we get some warm weather early, three months? February, March, then early April.” He had ticked the months off on his fingers. He always counted on his fingers when teaching me numbers.

I remember nodding my head, relieved. Back then, three months felt like an eternity.

“Why are you asking, J.J.?” My momma had been curious when she brought lunch in from the kitchen. It was rare for me to be so upset yet shed so few tears.

“Birds shouldn’t be caged. Raph needs to spread his wings and make a home in a tree and find a lady bird. But I don’t want him to be cold either. It’s really cold outside right now, Daddy.”

I squirmed on my feet, trying not to cry, trying to be brave.

My daddy had gotten up from his chair and bent down to my level. His own eyes had been rimmed red as well and I thought back to him and Momma arguing over Raph.

“Are you sure, Sweet Pea? Your Great-Grandma wanted you to have him.”

I squeezed that book tighter, pinching my fingertips red between the pages. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want this pain in my chest. But then I thought about Raph in that too small cage with wings that were built to fly. I would miss feeding him blueberries and filling his bowl with seeds. Miss hearing him croon a song just for me. But he wasn’t happy.

I nodded and covered my face with my hair.”

A Christmas Crow: The Heartwarming Tale of a Murder

“What happened next, Mamaw”

“What do you mean ‘what happened next’? You know the rest of the story, you all do.” A woman with faded brown hair, stood up with her hands on her hips. A small mob of children surrounded her recliner in front of the fire.

“Nu-uh.” A girl of about five stuck her nose up in the air. “Did you really get rid of Raph?”

“Watch yourself, Allie Mae. Raph was not a toy to be gotten rid of.”

The woman tweaked her granddaughter’s nose.

“So you didn’t let Raph free?” Another child piped up from the mound of cushions.

“I did.” Her voice turned quiet though a little grin tugged at her lips. “Tore my heart right in two. Once it had stayed warm for a week, my parents and I brought Raph and his cage to the trees that lined the yard.”

Judith-Jane’s eyes closed in reverence. “I almost couldn’t do it. But Daddy held the cage up for me and I popped it open. I had told Raph every day, that come spring he would be free to do as he pleased. I wasn’t about to break my promise.”

Allie Mae handed her grandmother a bowl of blueberries. In possible apology for her previous gaffe.

“But you little trouble makers know that wasn’t the end. You just don’t want to go to bed.”

She lowered herself back down in the recliner and tossed a berry into her mouth. Judith-Jane looked to each of her eight grandkids. A pity if one of her own children had thought the kids would be well rested come morning. But she wouldn’t trade having them all here, just in time for Christmas, for anything in the world.

“I never forgot the song that Raph would sing to me. I hummed it all through spring, and by that point, maybe Momma started to believe what I had said our bird could do. We didn’t know much about birds, especially crows back then.”

“Life went on. I would see other kids with dogs and cats, and feel my heart clench tight. Daddy offered to get me a puppy or even hamster, but I just missed Raph.” Judith-Jane dabbed at her eyes and she heard someone sniffle.

“Then I was seven and the air had started to grow cold again. I came home from school one day to see a carton of blueberries on the counter. Now back then, blueberries were quite expensive out of season. That’s one of the things my parents had been arguing about the previous winter. The cost of Raph’s blueberries. So I was quite surprised and not a little annoyed to see that carton there mocking me.”

“You didn’t have blueberry bushes?” One of her older grandsons asked.

“No those came later, and we certainly didn’t have any growing inside the house!”

“Like I said, I was right annoyed that they had bought something so expensive. I stomped my way into the living room and there sitting on the mantle was Raph with a bowl of berries. Pleased as could be.”

“He came back?”

“Oh yes. See we didn’t know how attached crows could get to humans who feed them. We reckoned he spent the warmer months stretching his wings, but once food got scarce he decided it was time to come home. My parents were so surprised, Momma rushed straight to the store.”

“At first it was just Raph. Then over time, we’d get one or two more. Sometimes we’d even get a visitor in the summer. Eventually Daddy started planting blueberry bushes around the yard. Said that’s all they really wanted. But I knew better and I think he did too. They liked to land on our shoulders or heads, seemed to crave company. Soon picking Raph out became hard. He taught them all to sing his song. I—I can’t even be sure when we last saw Raph.” Her voice broke and their Grandma cleared her throat.

She picked out a handful of the little blue berries and dropped them in her palm. Dropped one in each of her grandkids' outreached hands too. Three greedy kraas rasped out from the mantle before one of the small crows hopped down onto the chair to gently accept a berry. Her dark feathers gleamed a deep brown in the light from the fire, and she happily accepted another berry from Allie Mae’s fingers.

“Even though its been decades since Raph let us love him, we always have a crow or two or three make it home for Christmas.”