Friday, July 25, 2008

Goodbye Parakeet

We had two birds, and our blue parakeet died last night. She use to be called Girabaldi from "Babylon 5", but then she stared laying eggs a few years back and we realized she wasn't a boy, thus he just started calling her, "The Parakeet". Not very creative, but it just sort of happened. The Parakeet was almost 8.

Our other bird is Bobo, a gray and white cockatiel. He is my husband's bird, and is 15 years old. He's kinda lost today without his "mate". I cried last night, held her a bit before she died, and then gave her some privacy. It wasn't long after that and she was gone.

I thought that my son would be really upset, because he loves to hold our birds on his shoulder. Sometimes she would nibble his neck or face. But, his reaction was to ask me over and over, "THE PARAKEET IS DEAD, MOMMY?" And, he wiped my tears. I had no idea how my daughter would react. She pulled a chair up to the bird cage and told me, "Mom, I'm going to talk to Bobo and make him feel better, because we are getting our puppy tomorrow, so its ok, we are going to have a new pet." She actually sat in front of Bobo's cage and talked to him for about 10 minutes. Then, I got many questions about the status of the parakeet. "Mommy, the parakeet is dead, and we put her in the dirt, will she always stay there? She won't be alive again?" She was also very concerned that Daddy didn't get to say goodbye (he is standing duty till this evening).

Yes, tomorrow we get Scotty our new puppy. He will be 6 weeks old, and our new pet. I have my doubts that his presence will console our cockatiel, but it will certainly be a distraction for the rest of us!

On a different note, "Daisy the Chrysalis" emerged yesterday as a lovely Monarch butterfly. It was amazing! She sat on both of my kids for a short while and then flew up into the trees. We have "Horace" (101 Dalmatians) eating leaves and becoming a fat caterpillar. I think that might be it as far as keeping bugs as pets for awhile.

Goodbye little Parakeet, and thank you Lord for blessing us with your amazing creation.

1 comment:

CAS said...

Maybe it's just because I am a bird person, but a puppy would never really fill the void in my heart if one of my fids would die. I am glad it worked for your kids, though, because it's hard to loose a pet.