Writers and Lovers

The geese that Casey pauses to admire symbolize her connection with her mother. Casey finds the geese graceful and liberated; they are satisfied with their lives in the park but able to fly away when the weather shifts. Now that her mother is dead, Casey must deal with both abandonments on her own, and she projects her desire to connect with her mother onto the geese. Like the birds, her mother lived for herself, but it didn’t mean that Casey was unloved or unsupported.

Two moments stand out as poignantly symbolic events with the geese. The first is when Casey, in the depths of her anxiety and stress, stops to sing to the geese. She remembers that her mother loved Casey’s singing voice, and she releases that emotion of unconditional support onto the geese, as if in singing to them she can sing to her mother. The second is in the final chapter of the book, when Casey and Silas watch the geese begin their journeys to warmer climates. Casey is sad to know that she will be so busy that she will not notice when the geese all leave, but that sadness runs parallel to her appreciation of their instinct to fly.