[가이드포스트] 나무로 만든 홍관조 / 잭 커비 테네시주 알롱

His Cardinal Rule / JACK KIRBY, Allons, Tennessee

I slipped into the darkened room at the nursing home, not wanting to disturb the resident if she were sleeping. I was carrying a potted African violet in full bloom. Raising African violets was my hobby, and I enjoyed giving them to the people I'd gotten to know at this care facility near my home in Indiana.

The elderly resident was awake. She said hello and motioned to the chair beside her bed as I set the plant on the windowsill. She was quite 1frail, her body almost disappearing underneath her blanket.

"I brought you an African violet," I said. "It burst into bloom just this morning."
She smiled 2wanly and looked toward the window. "I wish…" she said softly. I leaned closer so I could hear.

"I wish that just once before I die, I could look out that window and see a redbird. That way I'd know everything was going to be all right." Then she closed her eyes.

Her last wish. And she'd chosen to share it with me. I 3felt bound to make it come true. But how? It wasn't as if I could summon a cardinal to appear at her window. Still, I understood this was no small hope, that for many people a redbird was a sign that God was near. Maybe this lady needed assurance that she was going to heaven.

I drove home, the responsibility weighing on me. In the garage, I spied an old piece of plywood. What if I made a cardinal? I was no artist. Still, I was going to do my best to get this woman her redbird. I used a band saw to cut a very rough outline of a cardinal. I painted the whole thing red. I didn't use different colors for the mask, the eye, the beak. Just red. I nailed it to a 4stake, returned to the nursing home and pounded the stake into the ground outside the resident's window while she slept. She died a few days later, before I could visit again. The care home staff told me that whenever she was awake, she'd gazed out the window, smiling, never realizing the redbird wasn't real.

I felt blessed to be a blessing, but that was as far as it went. I worked full-time for General Motors in Indiana and raised African violets on the side. I wasn't looking for a new hobby.

In 1995, I retired from GM. My wife, Janice, and I moved back home to the rolling green hills of middle Tennessee to start the next chapter in our lives. We bought a 200-acre property with an old log cabin and a barn. We restored the cabin to live in and set about raising a herd of Angus cattle, a return to the life I'd known as a boy.

The woods and pastures and creeks were where I talked to God and he talked to me. I felt closer to my maker than I had in years, and I figured being a gentleman farmer was what he intended for me in retirement.

Then one day in my barn, I came across a stack of cedar planks that the previous owner must have left behind. In my mind's eye, I saw something I hadn't thought of in years: the cardinal I'd made for the elderly woman in Indiana. These planks were the perfect size and material to make more.

The next rainy day, I went to the barn and drew the outline of a cardinal on one of the boards—still 5primitive but a little more 6polished than the first one I'd made—and cut it out.

I traced the outline on the cedar, then cut. And so on. Then I painted each cardinal. Red body and head, black mask, white eye, golden beak. I attached several of the birds to fence posts in front of our house. Janice liked them, which was good enough for me.

Until friends and family starting asking about my "folk art." Strangers stopped to inquire if the cardinals were for sale. They weren't, but I was happy to give a cardinal to anyone who asked.

Some people just wanted them for decoration. Others were deeply moved, sometimes to tears.

I give them to people who tell me they just can't find their smile. I've 8lost count of how many cardinals I've made over the past three decades, but the number is in the hundreds. It warms my heart to spot them all over my little town and to see Facebook pictures of the ones I've given to folks who live far away.

If a simple little redbird made of rough-cut wood can bring someone comfort and joy, I'm all in. I know it's not my handiwork that touches them. Like I said, I'm no artist. But I'm definitely inspired.

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