The sky was unusually quiet that morning. The kind of quiet that makes your chest heavy before you even understand why. Mark stood in his backyard, holding the wooden sculpture he had carved with his own trembling hands — seven yellow birds, perched on a piece of driftwood he had found years ago on a beach where he once promised his family that better days were coming.

But better days never came.

Mark had carved those birds for someone who would never get the chance to see them.

His daughter, Lily.

She had been obsessed with yellow birds since she was three. Every morning, she would run to the garden, barefoot, laughing with the sun in her eyes, trying to whistle like them. And even though she never managed to whistle properly, she believed the birds understood her. Mark and his wife used to laugh watching her twirl under the leaves.

Everything in Mark’s life used to revolve around her laughter.

Until the day it stopped.

Lily fell sick so suddenly that Mark never had time to understand what was happening. One moment she was running in the garden, the next she was lying in a hospital bed, fighting battles far bigger than her tiny body could carry. He stayed beside her every night, holding her hand, whispering stories about the yellow birds she loved so much, promising her they were waiting for her to come home.

But Lily never came home.

On the day she took her last breath, Mark had been carving the very first bird — a small one, just like her. He had planned to give it to her when she woke up. Instead, he placed it beside her hospital pillow, tears dripping onto the yellow paint he hadn’t even let dry completely.

After she passed, Mark couldn’t stop. He carved another bird… then another… then another… until there were seven. One for every year she had lived. One for every year she had given him a reason to wake up. One for every sunrise she never got to see again.

Today, as he stood under the tree where Lily used to play, Mark finally finished the seventh bird. The last one. The one he never wanted to carve because it meant accepting that her story had ended.

His hands shook as he held the sculpture close to his chest. His tears dripped onto the yellow wings, just like they had years before. The garden around him was quiet — painfully quiet. No birds singing. No tiny footsteps. No laughter.

Just a father holding seven pieces of wood carved in the shape of everything he had lost.

For him, the birds weren’t decorations.
They were memories.
They were unfinished dreams.
They were the only way he knew how to keep her alive.

Mark collapsed to his knees, clutching the sculpture, whispering into the silent air:

“I’m sorry, Lily. I tried… I really tried.”

And for the first time in years, a single yellow bird landed on the branch above him — as if to remind him that love never truly dies. It just changes shape.