Anna: hummingbirds, my gramma, and my name

I used to rush past my grandmother's garden, dismissing her patient hours among the tomatoes and marigolds as quaint. My gramma was really my dad's stepmom. His real mom died of the flu when he was still a baby. Then came the morning after his funeral when I found myself there at sunrise, overwhelmed by grief. A hummingbird appeared, impossibly tiny yet fierce, defending its territory with absolute conviction. In that moment, I understood what she'd been teaching me all along.

My grandmother had survived the migration from Lithuania, heard news of her family's farm being blown away by Russian invaders. Yet she never stopped planting "Mielasis..." (darling little one in Lithuanian) she used to say, "the earth remembers every seed of love we give it." That hummingbird, no bigger than my thumb, had traveled thousands of miles guided by ancient wisdom coded in its DNA. It trusted the flowers would be there.

My grandmother, Anna Sharkus, first taught me that love grows in the smallest gestures. I can still taste her raspberry jam on thick slices of toast, still smell her amazing homemade chop suey simmering on the stove. I'd sit at her kitchen table, mesmerized by the strange, beautiful letters in her Lithuanian newspaper, begging her to teach me the language she'd argue in with Grampa when they thought I couldn't understand. The day Grampa had his heart attack – while my parents were at the hospital with Dad's shattered elbow that required surgery to rebuild – I drove alone to their house, fifteen and terrified, not knowing what I'd find. I comforted her, just a her cooking had comforted me all those years growing up every Sunday at my grandparents' house for dinner.

Years later, I'd drag my reluctant siblings to the Walworth County Nursing Home in Elkhorn, past the bleach smell and institutional stinky sadness, to visit Gramma Sharkus in that place where old people were warehoused until they died. When the news reached me at the United States Air Force Academy that she'd passed, I climbed the mountain overlooking campus with a fellow cadet, both of us sitting in silence as I grieved for a woman who'd made every meal a celebration, every visit a gift. I reflected on my childhood years as I contemplated my future years as an Air Force Officer. My heart wanted to create peace and not war.

I tended her garden with new reverence. Each native plant I added to my desert garden was a prayer, each pollinator that visited was proof that small acts of care create ripples of life. When neighbors asked about my "wild" garden, I shared her story. Many have started their own patches of native plants. Mrs. Chen planted bee balm. The Johnsons removed their lawn for prairie grass. You can see a 4-minute clip of an Anna's hummingbird babies being born and fledging

. And for more detailed info here.

Outside my home office window, I planted a hummingbird garden that was my daily meditation. Rufous and Anna's hummingbirds gathered there, their territorial claims as fierce as tiny warriors. I watched them nourish themselves with bright-colored flower nectar, listen for their distinctive trill as they flited back and forth between the salvias and bee balm. Often I'd look up from my computer to find one hovering at eye level, separated from me only by a triple pain of glass, its iridescent feathers catching the light like living jewels.

I've learned their migration patterns, their favorite flowers, their fierce loyalty to places that welcome them. In caring for what they need, I've found my own ancient wisdom: that tending the earth is how we tend each other, how we tend ourselves, how we tend the future. Gramma Sharkus would have understood – every jam jar filled, every meal shared, every act of love was her way of saying the same thing: the earth remembers every seed of care we give it.

I am named after my Gramma Sharkus. My given name (I found this out after my Dad died discovering my actual birth certificate) was Queen Anna Kathryn Sharkus. Yes, I was actually named a Queen. But most importantly I was named after my Gramma Sharkus, Anna. My name has changed substantially over the years. My parents decided not to call me Anna so not to confuse me with Gramma Anna Sharkus. They used my middle name Kathryn, shortened to Kathy. As a freestyle aerialist, I would shorten it even more to Kat. I married and my Sharkus transformed into Haber. So now as Kat Haber, I reflect on the delicious weave of homemade food from my Gramma Anna Sharkus, hummingbirds, and my name.