When you find yourself trying to remember a show (or any works) that's on the tip of your tongue but just out of reach, come here - the collective brain of the TVTropes community can probably help. Post all the details you can remember (examples help). If you're looking for a trope, head over to Trope Finder. Have general questions about tropes? Visit Ask The Tropers!
I'm pretty sure I remember a TV adaptation of this - the main character was a boy and I remember him befriending the old woman and making the shirt/cardigan thingy out of feathers he got off dead pigeons in some attic or something. And the old lady used to be a singer (opera, possibly) and when he gives her the feather thing he made, she starts singing and then dies moments later, happy because she'd wanted the feather thingy for some time. I can't remember what it was called but I'm pretty sure the main character was played by the same boy who was in things like Nanny Mc Phee, Love Actually, the Doctor Who two-pater Human Nature/Family of Blood, and some other stuff. Dunno if that helps?
I also remember a part where the kid phones someone, possibly the hursing home/hospital where the old lady lives, holding a cloth against the phone to muffle his voice and not sound like a kid, and he gives a message to the guy on the other end of the phone that "The boy who can fly keeps his promises", so that he'll tell this to the old woman and she'll know he's trying to make the feather garment.
I think I found it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feather_Boy
Hell yes! Thank you! Also, I had no idea there was an adaptation of it- I'll have to check it out next time I'm due for an existential crisis.
An old book I read when I was younger- a kid's book, though it dealt with some heavy stuff.
I remember the MC had split parents, or at least that the mum was the main parental figure. MC seemed very anxious and definitely neurodivergent in a lot of ways, and would come home and announce to the empty house that "I can see you" in case anyone was hiding in wait. He's obviously a bully's target. At one point, their class goes to an old people's home and they get paired up with old people.
I have more details but this might get long so if people need more I can reply with some other stuff I remember.
The gist is: creepy house, sewing feathers onto a shirt (to make a bird coat), bully goes too far, MC snaps & seriously hurts him and is suspended, also the old woman's kid died of an asthma attack when he was young (in the creepy house), and the old woman dies at the end.
Yeah, I don't remember it being a super happy book, but I'd like to find it again.