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Explanation
Oct. 1st, 2006 03:18 amSo at around 2 o'clock this morning, I found out what that bad feeling from the other day was.
My cockatiel died. I often described him as an angry bird who didn't want to be bothered, which was true. For some reason, despite his nasty attitude, I loved him. He's been my pet since I was seven, and I never imagined life without him... even though he never did much of anything besides stare out the window. He's outlived every previous pet I've ever had besides my current parakeet, Petey. Petey was very, very, VERY fond of him for reasons unknown (when Petey was little we let them meet and Caesar, the cockatiel, bit him right away) and as you might have imagined, Petey's upset, too. He doesn't quite understand, but I took him out of his cage to say goodbye and he kept looking at him the way I've never seen him look at anything before, so I guess he knows. Still, tomorrow he's going to wake up to an empty cage beside him, and I'm kind of dreading that. When my mother (or me, if I'm being nice to my mother) wakes up the birds, she takes off their covers, opens Petey's cage (Petey's extraordinarily tame, so he stays out of his cage when he's not sleeping) and puts out a little bowl of water on top of Caesar's cage. Petey runs up to Caesar's cage and looks at him awhile, then goes and eats some seeds (we also keep seeds on top of his cage, along with toys and lettuce and things) and then eventually he gets bored and goes back to his own cage to take a nap (birds have a tendency to nap when bored. :D)
Tomorrow there won't be any Caesar for poor little Petey to feed or look at or whatever they did together.
Having a bird die is not quite like other pet deaths. With fish, people tend to flush them. With dogs and cats, and I'm assuming other large mammals, they usually get sick or injured and the vet takes care of them. With birds (and my hamster) it's a bit different. We usually have little to no warning, and then end up scrambling around the next morning looking for a box to bury him (or her) in. So we buried Caesar already... I had to lay him down in the hole. I said goodbye, and tomorrow I think I'll bring a flower out, for all the animals we've buried back there, including all the fish in tissues. It makes me happy to know that Caesar is with my other pets: Stinky the hamster, innumerable fish (including Felix and Oscar, Frogetta the tiny frog, a tiny catfish, etc.), and Popsie (my lone female bird, a parakeet), Fred (a bird my parents had in New York, left with my uncle, and then got back when my uncle drove down to let him retire in Florida, a type of parakeet that resembles a small parrot and eats large foods with his foot and was very friendly, he used to play with my hair) and a canary we had for several years that never got a name for some odd reason, and stopped singing one day for no reason.
The strange thing was, my mother told me that for the past few days she'd been having a weird feeling like something bad was going to happen.... just like me, except neither of us had told the other. I told her about mine after she told me about hers and then we cried a little, a strange thing for my mother to do. And then my father came home from work (everyone in my family is an insomniac... does that surprise you?) and buried him.
There's nothing else to say, I guess. Caesar was, as I told Bianca, one badass mofo of a bird. He didn't take any nonsense from any bitches. I often called my birds my brothers, and although it doesn't feel like I lost a brother... it does feel like I've lost a little part of myself, because he was there for so much of my life.
Rest in peace, my little angry friend. I know what it's like to hate the world, we had a lot in common. I'll miss your little orange cheeked face, your spiked up feather "hair" and your chirps.
Goodbye, Caesar.
<3
My cockatiel died. I often described him as an angry bird who didn't want to be bothered, which was true. For some reason, despite his nasty attitude, I loved him. He's been my pet since I was seven, and I never imagined life without him... even though he never did much of anything besides stare out the window. He's outlived every previous pet I've ever had besides my current parakeet, Petey. Petey was very, very, VERY fond of him for reasons unknown (when Petey was little we let them meet and Caesar, the cockatiel, bit him right away) and as you might have imagined, Petey's upset, too. He doesn't quite understand, but I took him out of his cage to say goodbye and he kept looking at him the way I've never seen him look at anything before, so I guess he knows. Still, tomorrow he's going to wake up to an empty cage beside him, and I'm kind of dreading that. When my mother (or me, if I'm being nice to my mother) wakes up the birds, she takes off their covers, opens Petey's cage (Petey's extraordinarily tame, so he stays out of his cage when he's not sleeping) and puts out a little bowl of water on top of Caesar's cage. Petey runs up to Caesar's cage and looks at him awhile, then goes and eats some seeds (we also keep seeds on top of his cage, along with toys and lettuce and things) and then eventually he gets bored and goes back to his own cage to take a nap (birds have a tendency to nap when bored. :D)
Tomorrow there won't be any Caesar for poor little Petey to feed or look at or whatever they did together.
Having a bird die is not quite like other pet deaths. With fish, people tend to flush them. With dogs and cats, and I'm assuming other large mammals, they usually get sick or injured and the vet takes care of them. With birds (and my hamster) it's a bit different. We usually have little to no warning, and then end up scrambling around the next morning looking for a box to bury him (or her) in. So we buried Caesar already... I had to lay him down in the hole. I said goodbye, and tomorrow I think I'll bring a flower out, for all the animals we've buried back there, including all the fish in tissues. It makes me happy to know that Caesar is with my other pets: Stinky the hamster, innumerable fish (including Felix and Oscar, Frogetta the tiny frog, a tiny catfish, etc.), and Popsie (my lone female bird, a parakeet), Fred (a bird my parents had in New York, left with my uncle, and then got back when my uncle drove down to let him retire in Florida, a type of parakeet that resembles a small parrot and eats large foods with his foot and was very friendly, he used to play with my hair) and a canary we had for several years that never got a name for some odd reason, and stopped singing one day for no reason.
The strange thing was, my mother told me that for the past few days she'd been having a weird feeling like something bad was going to happen.... just like me, except neither of us had told the other. I told her about mine after she told me about hers and then we cried a little, a strange thing for my mother to do. And then my father came home from work (everyone in my family is an insomniac... does that surprise you?) and buried him.
There's nothing else to say, I guess. Caesar was, as I told Bianca, one badass mofo of a bird. He didn't take any nonsense from any bitches. I often called my birds my brothers, and although it doesn't feel like I lost a brother... it does feel like I've lost a little part of myself, because he was there for so much of my life.
Rest in peace, my little angry friend. I know what it's like to hate the world, we had a lot in common. I'll miss your little orange cheeked face, your spiked up feather "hair" and your chirps.
Goodbye, Caesar.
<3
