The story of Bruce Bird must now be told. I see him aging and having
difficulty moving around his cage. He has stopped eating the spinach he used to
devour as soon as I put it in his cage. Parakeets can live up to ten or
thirteen years, according to my resources, and Bruce is at least ten and maybe
much older. I don’t know, and here’s why:
On June 14, 2006, my phone rang much too early in the morning, the kind
of call that makes me know in my gut that something is wrong. When I answered,
a sobbing Roy Pfiester blurted, “Bruce is gone. Bruce died this morning.”
What? Bruce Brown, a travel agent for American Express, was my good buddy
with whom I’d not only shared years of friendship but who also had been my
travel mate to Morocco. Wherever Bruce went, his raucous laughter filled the
room. Bruce and Roy’s cockatoo even mimicked Bruce’s laugh. In the time I knew
Bruce he and Roy had a cat, a dog, and several exotic birds. We sometimes took
care of other’s dogs, when one of us traveled.
Roy, Bruce’s partner, was the quiet half of the couple. He always grinned
and quietly found humor in Bruce’s antics and unfiltered comments.
Bruce was young, in his fifties. I was in my sixties at the time. How
could Bruce have left this earth before me? Why? He had been perfectly healthy.
Nothing made sense.
As best we could eventually determine, Bruce had some
sort of medical episode upon landing in Banff, Canada, on a Fam tour—one agents
use to become familiar with destinations they may later recommend to clients.
The doctors weren’t sure if Bruce had altitude sickness or a heart problem, so they
transferred him to a larger hospital in Calgary, where he finally felt well
enough and had time to call Roy. Roy said Bruce’s last words to him were, “This
isn’t good-bye.”
It was.
I was distraught, but I could only imagine how devastated Roy was, because
their partnership had been strong for more than twenty years. Bruce’s memorial
service overflowed with people giving heartfelt testimony to the witty, loving
man.
After Bruce’s death, I could not get a handle on my depression. About two
weeks later, I was on the phone when something caught my eye. On a chair back
outside my window sat a colorful bird, looking in the window. I thought at
first it might be a painted bunting, which I’d seen only in photos, but when I
stepped closer, I saw that it was a blue parakeet. Parakeets should not be
flying around loose in Atlanta, Georgia, so I told the person on the phone that
I’d call back. I opened the back door gently, for fear the bird would take off.
It didn’t.
I walked over slowly, one step at a time.
The bird held its ground.
I slipped my hand over the bird, fearing it would try to fly away. It
didn’t. I gingerly walked back into my house holding a quaking, skinny
parakeet.
Now what?
My humane trap for catching squirrels and mice was small, but it was safe
and the closest thing I had to a cage. I put the bird in the humane trap and
brought it into my kitchen. I found a bag of seeds I had intended to put into
my feeder outside and put some seeds in the bird’s temporary cage. The little
budgie dug in, eating like it had been starving. It probably had been.
I tried to find its rightful owner. I put up signs around the
neighborhood and posted notices on the Internet, but every call I received was
for a lost parrot, not a parakeet. Someone had lost a beautiful parakeet, and I
wanted to find its rightful home, because I had no interest in owning a bird. While
I waited to find its owner, though, I watched the colorful creature eat, drink,
and even sing, and I felt in awe.
After a few days I recalled that when my friend Ruth’s husband died
suddenly, she started finding feathers everywhere she went. She told me Robert
was sending her feathers to tell her everything was all right. Feathers? My
friend Bruce, animal lover that he was, had sent me an entire bird! I knew the
bird had come to the right place.
I gladly invested in a proper cage and all the other equipment one buys
for a parakeet, and Bruce Bird had a name and a home.
The story doesn’t end there, though.
In my research I learned how to tell the sex of a parakeet. I learned
that an adult male has a blue or purple cere, the little crest above its beak.
Adult females have a brown, crusty cere. Bruce Bird, with his brown, crusty
cere, was not a male, but a female. I had to chuckle with my new knowledge,
because I knew Bruce Brown wouldn’t have minded having a feathered female namesake;
he was totally out of the closet himself.
Ah, but there’s more.
When Bruce Bird stopped eating and singing, I worried about his health
and found an avian vet who put the bird through many tests. She explained that
the bird was indeed a male, but because it had underdeveloped testicles—two tiny
dots on the x-rays—it had become feminized. By then I knew my friend Bruce must
have been rolling in laughter in heaven. Although Bruce was gay, he wasn’t
transgender, but leave it to Bruce to send me a transgender bird. Yes, my
friend always had a great sense of humor.
My sister guffawed at me for spending hundreds of dollars on veterinary
bills for a bird that could be replaced for ten or fifteen dollars, but Bruce
Bird was irreplaceable. Bruce Brown sent him to me from beyond. I believe it,
and it is so.
Anyway, after a course of antibiotics and weighing the bird daily to ensure
he was not losing weight (Yes, I had to buy a special scale), Bruce Bird recuperated
and returned to his cheerful demeanor. What I found fascinating was that he
never allowed me to hold him again without trying to bite me, so that first
time I picked him up on the deck, he must have been near death from starvation.
Ten years I’ve enjoyed the parakeet I never thought I’d own. It’s been
ten years of buying seeds, apples, spinach, cuttlebones, toys, and cages. Ten
years of having to arrange for bird sitters whenever I traveled. Ten years of
having him greet me each morning with a happy twitter. Ten wonderful years.
A few weeks ago, though, I found Bruce Bird on the floor of his cage,
unable to get back on his perch. He squawked and fought me when I put him back
on his perch, but eventually he held onto the perch and then ate. Ever since
then he’s had trouble moving around. He has stopped singing. He refuses to eat
his greens or apple slices, but at least he still eats his seeds and drinks his
water.
I know he’s aging, and it’s a natural process over which I have no
control. I don’t know how old he was when he came to me, but he was already a
mature bird. He’s given me ten great years of enjoyment with his songs, mimicking
sounds, and warbling to the TV. I know I will lose him one day, but at least I’m
being given some warning. He’s going to entertain Bruce Brown in heaven one
day. I don’t want to think about it, but I do thank Bruce Brown for sending me
a little blue bundle of joy to get me through my original sadness. Maybe he’ll
send another parakeet to rescue if this one flies over the rainbow bridge.
.
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