I was just cleaning the kitchen and realized I was furiously scrubbing the sink, taking out my frustrations on the stainless steel. We got through the day just fine. Yes, Clementine was heart-broken. Yes, it was horrible to watch our bird die, as I will relate in detail further on, but it was a beautiful day. The sun was warm and bright, and I had planned to clean the house and get outside with the dog and the kids, which we did do.
You know, it’s one thing to wake up and find your bird, claws pointing skyward, dead in the cage. It’s a shock, but you get over it. You buy a new bird. Fix it. But it’s quite another thing to watch your pet die. To know there is nothing you can do, little comfort you can give while it suffers in your hands.
I did call the pet shop owner where we bought it to ask if there was anything we could do. “Yes, you can put antibiotic in the bird’s water,” she said. “What is the bird doing now?”
“It’s laying on the bottom of the cage.”
“Laying down?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” she said quietly. And I already knew it was too far gone for antibiotics, but just amazed at how quickly we went from noticing Kiwi’s plumage was fluffed out as if she were chilled this morning, to her lying on the bottom of the cage helplessly in just a few short hours.
Throughout the day, once we made that observation this morning that she looked chilled, we made efforts to keep her warm. Later, as she lost the power to perch, we held her in a towel. Eventually, she began to have spasms and jerked in our hands, which made Clementine weep.
The morning we woke up to find Marco dead in his cage, I comforted Clementine by telling her it was better that way. The last parakeet I’d had died miserably over several days. Now that story came right back to her mind, “Will Kiwi die like your bird did?”
And I was afraid he would, and so not very encouraging today, though she prayed for a miracle.
“Maybe I’m just no good with birds,” she said. She blamed herself as she searched for reasons. “It’s not fair,” she said, “to lose two birds so quickly.”
And it’s not fair when your little girl gets her heart broken either, but I’ll take it out on the sink now so I can give her a calm shoulder to cry on later.
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