Thursday, July 18, 2013

s i r r a y m o n d .



i had a draft post written to introduce you to the newest member of our family,
but this will be a little different than i was hoping to post.

sir raymond fell from the sky to us just moments after bruce died.


yes bruce died. 
he waited until two minutes after we got home from our canada trip
to go join his little friends in the outer universe.
the little man took his last breaths in my hands and the next day we had a little service by the tree for him.
if i believed in reincarnation i would think that little man just couldn’t be away.


but yesterday we lost raymond.

with bruce it was expected. he was sick from the time we got him.
but this little birdie had just learned to fly.

raymond was needy.
the 10 year old kid next store said it best
“this is preparing you to have a baby”
as he helped me feed it so we could go outside and ride scooters.
 
it was true.
mornings, lunches, and several times at night he was running around the house
or flying onto our bed to get me to feed him or be held.
i would tiptoe around the house to not wake him in the morning,
but do you realize how hard it is to hide from a hungry baby bird?

for two and a half weeks.
he ate and ate, grew his feathers out, and chased miss june around the house.
we thought he was just about ready to be released.

it started tuesday when he gave us a little scare.
i came home from work to him not really being able to hold up his head.
i figured he wore himself out in the cage, and once he was fed he was back to his wild self.
however, yesterday at lunch i knew it was over.

i held him and gave him some water. he would convulse and then be just fine.
and then convulse again, until he couldn’t pick his head up anymore.
i’ll spare you the details of everything, but i could tell he was in pain.
so i did the only thing i could do and just held him and whistled
which was usually the only thing that would get him to stop chirping.
he seemed to listen.

the last few weeks, it embarrassed me that i turned into a bird lady.
but as i watched him stare at me as i whistled i was more than happy i got to be his bird lady.
anything beats cat lady.

i whistled church's hymns (weird), let him know it was okay to die,
and told him to tell our creator to send us a baby.
and then he was gone.
i cried and called casey who cried
and we went back to our jobs.

death is no fun.
see ya on the other side sir raymond.

1 comment:

  1. I never got to meet Raymond but I still feel sad inside. I'm so sorry.

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