Maybe The Deer

I wonder sometimes about omens. People say that seeing owls are bad omens. I love owls. I get excited if I see one. I saw many while you were in my belly. More than usual. Your Grandpa said that your Grandma saw one the week before she died. I saw one the other morning perched upon a stop sign. It makes me wonder.
Your other Grandma, Susie my Mom, believes that stray animals are a bad sign. She believes that if they choose your house to go to something will happen. The week before my Dad died a stray dog came to their house. He was very thin, and sickly. My Dad fed him and they kept him in the fence for the night. The next day he was gone. My Mom had a bad feeling. A week later her bad feeling proved itself to be our tragedy. It makes me wonder.
I wonder if I stop looking for signs, will bad things quit happening? We march along blindly not knowing what will come next. We know what we expect to happen, but there is no way to know the truth.
I also remember the Thanksgiving before my Dad died we saw a Cayote stumbling around on the edge of the field in front of the house. We saw the cayote sit and watch our window, we saw him stand and walk dizzily toward an old storage shack. My Dad thought that the cayote was hurt. I think I remember him questioning whether or not he should shoot it so that it wouldn't suffer. He did not and we forgot about the cayote. The next summer after Dad had died. We went out to that building to look for something and found the cayote's stiff body. There was fur and a shape, but not a life. Then we remembered Thanksgiving and thought that it must have been the same animal. It was curled in the shape of sleep.
How far in advance do signs come to people? I think that the signs come in the form of something beautiful so that they catch the eye of the person they are intended for. My Dad told my Mom when they were first married that if he ever died "just to throw him to the cayotes." Did he know then? Is that why canines kept coming to him? Hadley knows that I like owls, she gets them for me as gifts. I hope that I don't see these beautiful creatures anymore.
Whenever I hear the cayotes running and singing in the night, I wonder if my Dad is off to warn others of what is to come. What animal did you like, Frost?
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.