I got home from my tax person this afternoon. My stepdaughter was out by the newly planted Cherry tree near my trailer and I went outside to greet her. I could sense there was something about her that didn’t ring right but let it pass as I commented that it was a good thing I had money on my credit card to pay for this year’s taxes.
She gave me a sad smile. “Louie passed this afternoon.”
The initial shock of this news, that Lois, a beloved parrot who appeared in high spirits all morning while I was dealing with emails, phone calls and my writing, was suddenly and inexplicitly gone, became replaced by the same sadness she felt. I too choked up and felt tears burn my eyes. “What, how?”
“She was an old bird.”
“She was?” I asked in disbelief. For some reason I thought she was the same age as Spike, who was now around ten years old.
“Yes, we got her when she was fairly old,” Emily replied. I felt so tempted to go down from my trailer and hug her, comfort her, but feared my own emotions would interfere and I stifled the urge.
I calmed myself down after about a minute, then allowed myself to leave the safety of my trailer and come down to her.
“Did you called that person and rescheduled?”
I nodded and said, “Yes, right after I received your text, I emailed her that we’ll need to do the installation next Tuesday when I’m off.” The matter of discussion involved the installation of a 250-gallon propane tank for the trailer, so I can hopefully just need to fill the thing once a year, rather than every six or seven days with the two seven-gallon tanks that one of the kids or Nick has to install for me because they’re too heavy for me to hoist into the trailer’s cramp compartment.
We went inside the house together. I went to my Amazon, Elsa to see how she was holding up. It’s the second time in her young life this had happened to her. Bobby was in the cage next to her when he died nearly two years ago. It had to be a bit traumatic for her to see Louie do the same thing and then to witness Emily’s reaction when she discovered her.
She was on the top perch of the cage, so I knew the incident affected her to some degree, since she normally doesn’t go up that high. She came down for me and greeted me with “What’s ya doing?” She climbed up to my shoulder.
I talked to her at her level, simple questions and affirming that she’s a pretty girl. We sat on my recliner and looked over my emails on my lap top. We hung out a few minutes until I needed to put her back inside her cage and closed the gate.
On my way to the writers’ meeting, I imagined the spirit of Louie leaving her mortal remains behind, leaving the cage and flying to freedom, something she couldn’t do while living, stuck on her perch inside a house. Good bye Louie, Louie.
Jerry Schellhammer 