"Crows are undoubtedly associated with and symbolize death– even in their plural form, they’re known as “a murder.”
My mother shared an affinity with them, though: from the moment we moved to our neighborhood, she became intrigued by their social nature, and could often be seen on our front lawn with a pair of binoculars just looking at them.
She was a tiny woman who owned a big black coat, and every morning she went outside to scatter breadcrumbs from breakfast for the crows; during this time, she would refer to herself as Mother Crow.
One day, we saw a crow on the lawn with an amusing expression on his face and a cigarette butt in his beak. We cracked up laughing, and my mom asked me to come up with a name for him. “Fabio,” I replied. We laughed more at that notion, and from that day on, every crow was Fabio.
The crows flock to our house, they can be seen circling over the roof and loitering on the lawn. They don’t disturb the garden and they’re not too loud, we’ve always appreciated the company.
It was unsettling to various boyfriends coming to my house for the first time, and a point of gossip for the neighbors, but a funny inside joke for our family and friends. The crows knew my mom without a doubt: they recognized her Mother Crow coat, and they knew her face.
Crows are intelligent and social creatures, they know more than we think they do. Which is why I felt my mother’s presence with me on the day she died, when a crow swooped in front of me after I fled outside. Crows follow me everywhere, they crop up in places where crows shouldn’t be, and maybe that’s just their nature, but part of me believes it’s my mother watching over me."