Comfort birds 

 The “medic” chickadees painted on the side of a building in Hintonburg send the message that these birds are there to provide aid and comfort.  

 A recipient of a comfort bird can hold it in their hands and know they are not alone and that others care for them. They are not fighting their battles alone. 

Comfort birds 

By John Meissner 

Last year, I sought a solitary activity to fill my time with a useful and caring social component. I have admired volunteer quilters who raise money for charity or to warm up people who benefit from more warmth. Also, the women who knit caps for the babies in the neonatal intensive care unit at our city hospitals.  

But these weren’t my thing. One afternoon, I took an afternoon workshop course at the Ottawa City Woodshop in City Centre to learn the basics of carving birds, specifically comfort birds. These small birds – chickadee and sparrow lookalikes – are created as gifts to help people who are dealing with pain, anxiety around health issues or the loss of loved ones. 

These little birds sit smoothly in the palm of your hand, like meditation stones, and are given to people with the stated and clear intention that they know that others care for them and that they are loved. A comfort bird is a unique woodcarving that is appealing to view and touch. Holding one and rubbing your hand over its smooth countours can bring a sense of well-being and comfort, much like the “worry rock” of times past.  

Carving comfort birds can fill otherwise empty hours in a way that avoids endless TV streaming and computer screen time. It is a tactile and physical medium; the wood can be seen, touched and manipulated. A piece of wood and a carving knife, a little sandpaper and furniture oil is all that’s required. 

As a novice wood carver, I am learning as I go along. While carving, it seems inevitable that one of these little birds will go out of proportion about two-thirds of the way through. At this point, I’ve learned to put the carving knife down and pick up sandpaper to make changes more slowly. 

For me, this process takes time. Some carvers make the work go faster by using an electric spindle sander to turn out birds at a more rapid clip, taking about a quarter of the time that I need. For now, I have avoided electrical tools, having downsized a number of times in the last decade, leaving behind table saws and band saws. I now live in a very small apartment, and all my current tools fit into a single kitchen drawer.   

Comfort birds evolve from rough-hewed blocks of wood that are reduced with rough carving and are further refined and sanded into shape, then stained or painted. I like basswood – like many soft woods, I find it easy to carve, and it has a lovely grain. 

I have heard stories of people dealing with the later stages of terminal health diagnoses, receiving and holding on to comfort birds throughout as a means of grounding and emotional self-regulation. After four decades of working as a psychologist, I very much appreciate the notion that transitional objects help children and older people deal with change and challenging situations.  

D.W. Winnicott formulated the idea of transitional objects to keep a person’s inner and outer worlds separate and still connected. At the time of his writing (1951), Europe was dealing with masses of traumatized children who survived the Second World War but were still suffering. His theories on transitional objects alerted others to practices that help ease suffering. 

A comfort bird can provide this source of grounding and connection with loved ones. People working through end-of-life issues are often described as continuously holding their comfort birds in hospice care. Later, the comfort bird resting on a shelf or mantle helps survivors stay connected to their lost loved one. 

The birds are also very accurate depictions of the real birds. I gave one to a friend who had lost close family members. She has a cat and reports that the cat is constantly stalking the comfort bird and seeking out new angles of attack. It instinctively wants to conquer this unmoving prey but can’t figure out how.  

John Meissner is a retired psychologist living in the Glebe who has worked and developed programs at Carleton University and worked at the Board of Education and Algonquin. He has many interests in the arts, cars, Buddhist philosophy and premillennial music.