I hadn’t seen any hawks, neither the male nor the female nor any grandhawks yet this year, for about a month. And then suddenly in two days I have four times now, the adults.

The patient’s doctor was on vacation; the person covering decided not to wait for him but to get the results and to get the results to the patient.  Dermatology had wanted three months for an appointment to do the biopsy and the patient’s doctor had decided not to wait for them. The patient was too young to have melanoma and the lesion didn’t look like what melanoma is typically supposed to look like; he had decided not to wait till it did nor till the patient got reasonably older. The surgery center wanted to wait several weeks to do the operation; the person covering said NO you do my patient NOW.

The biopsy results came Wednesday. Melanoma.

The surgery was today, Friday, with no time to think out what one might need to do to prepare for the post-op period, just GO.

Aggressive but very shallow and declared stage one, still. They do believe they got it all.

And while we were talking to the not-too-groggy patient, the mama Cooper’s hawk caught dinner and prepared the meal (no blood and guts within sight, very tidy) right in front of us, laying out her picnic on our back lawn as we talked. A down feather got caught in her beak for several minutes till she finally managed after several tries to pull it off with her talons–the proverbial spinach between the teeth while people are watching.

My husband and I described to our loved one this gorgeous raptor capturing a share of our day. Somehow, when we need one, they always show up.

When the patient, far from us, needed it, friends became family and I will love them forever for it; they very much showed up over there.

When the patient needed that doctor to follow their gut intuition regardless, that doctor completely showed up for us all.

There’s a doctor out there who deserves a whole whack of knitting from me.