Hummingbirds

By Stephen Yeo, MDiv, RP

Psychotherapist and Chaplain

I was starting my clinical work as a chaplain on a forensic unit in a hospital. I was new in this role, and I was asked to assess a young man who was very ill at the time. He was confused and nervous about a number of things. I went up to see him. We were sitting on the third floor of one of the buildings. The young man sat facing the windows and I sat facing the young man. I asked him some questions about his experience in the hospital, how he was finding it, and that kind of thing.

Stephen Yeo, MDiv, RP

He just kind of looked at me and asked, “Where is God behind the bars?”

The building had bars on the windows, and I thought maybe he was asking me if I knew where God was for him in this place, in this hospital, in this system.

I asked, “What do you mean?”

He said he knew where God was on the other side of the bars — in church, in his community — but now that he was in the hospital, now that he was sick, now that he had an interaction with the law, he had no idea where God was.

It was an important question. It will always stay with me -- “Where is God behind the bars?”

As I was thinking about this, he abruptly jumped up and I heard the sound of the chair drag on the floor. I was somewhat startled. In a forensic facility, I was always trying to be vigilant about where I was in terms of the door and my own safety. It was an abrupt jump that startled me. He walked around the table and headed toward a window behind me. I wondered what was happening. A few seconds later, he yelled “Come here!”

As I walked toward the window, he was pointing and saying, “Do you see it? It’s a hummingbird.”

I looked and, sure enough, there was a hummingbird outside the window. We watched it and then eventually made our way back to our chairs. When he spoke, he said, “That was God. God is giving me a sign that He is not just outside the bars but also listening to me behind the bars. He is with me here, in this place. He sent me a sign.”

There was a palpable difference in the patient’s demeanor. He saw this hummingbird as an answer to the question about where God was in the strangeness of this place. To me, time seemed to stand still as he was telling me what this hummingbird meant to him in this frightening place. It was really rather beautiful, and absolutely sacred in many ways. It’s one of those defining moments that I hang onto, because it was one of my earliest interactions with a patient in my new role.

A few years later, this patient was found not criminally responsible and was being discharged from the hospital. I had followed him throughout much of his hospitalization, and he had asked to meet with me one last time. During the meeting, he said to me, “You wouldn’t believe what happened to me the other day.”

“I was going out for a smoke”—this was back when patients were allowed to smoke in designated areas—“And as I was making my way out of the hospital, I hear this loud thump. So I go towards the window, where I heard the thump, and I look down and see a bird on the ground. It hit the window. I go outside to look closer at the bird and I realize it’s not just any bird, it’s a hummingbird.”

The patient then tells me that he picked up the bird and took it to one of the nurses. They put it in a box with a towel to give it some comfort. It was in shock. About an hour later, the bird starts to show some life again. The patient and the nurse took the bird outside and released it. The bird flew off. And then the patient was quiet and there was a long pause.

Then he said, “You know Stephen, I think I was that hummingbird all along. I had hit a wall in my life and I was somewhat unconscious. I was in shock. I couldn’t figure things out. I was stunned. I needed some kind of resuscitation, some kind of coming back to life again. I needed to get well so that I could fly again.”

I knew exactly what he meant. He wasn’t only talking about this most recent experience, he was also reflecting back to the first time he had seen a hummingbird, years ago. In an instant, I knew he was referring to the God-behind-the-bars hummingbird. It was powerful and I knew that I was experiencing another sacred event. That ended up being the last time I ever saw him. This remains one of the most beautiful and sacred stories I have ever had the privilege to witness: hummingbirds appeared at both the beginning and end of a patient’s stay.