Today was a rough day.
Work was hella busy. I barely had time to breathe. I'm supposed to get two paid 15 minute breaks every day, but I only got one. I understood that we were busy, but you can bet your ass that the ass-kissers and bosses got all of their breaks. 🙄
At home I couldn't stay awake long enough to do anything in animal crossing. I kept falling asleep in my recliner. My dad suggested I go ahead and go to bed right before 7pm, so I started to head that way.
I went to the birdcage to feed the birds when I found my mom's bird that we raised from an egg at the bottom of the cage. She was sitting under the bottom perch and didn't move when I stuck my hand in the cage. I almost touched her but I recoiled a bit and decided to rattle the wire on the bottom of the cage. She didn't move. I turned around and looked at my parents, "I don't think Lucky bird is okay."
I moved aside and my mom reached in the cage and took her out. "No, she's not okay." Mama looked at her and held her. "She's cold."
My grandma got a box and they put Lucky in it. I went back to the birdcage and got our other bird, Speckles, out. She seemed kind of agitated. I guess she knows her best friend isn't coming back. I held Speckles for a minute while my mom washed her hands and came back into the living room. I asked her if she wanted to hold Speckles and she said yes.
I emptied the two food cups and refilled one.
I tried not to cry. It's been about two and a quarter hours since it happened.
I wish we could've had some sign, some warning, before this happened. It's like it was out of the blue. Cockatiels tend to live between 15 and 20 years and she was 16. She's had issues with one of her wings for years, but I don't think that was the cause of her death.
I wonder when exactly she died. When was the last time we heard her chirp? Did she die sometime last night? She was definitely alive when I fed them before bed yesterday. Did she die while my dad and I were at work, but my mom, grandma, and nephew were still home? Was it after they left and when no one was home? Was it after my dad and I got home and while I was sleeping in my recliner?
I do know there's nothing we could've done. I believe she died quietly, but not in her sleep. Her eyes were still "open."
It's just really sad. She was part of the family. She's been in my life for 2/3rds of it. She hatched over the summer in 2005 when I was 8. Her mother died almost a year later.
I'm also the one who found her mother when she died and I'm the one who named her, Princess.
Princess was a sweet, beautiful bird. She was all yellow except her orange "cheeks." The absolute sweetest bird.
I was 9 and I came home from school. No one else was home yet since my sisters's bus came later than mine and our parents were probably on the way home from work. I called them to let them know I had gotten home safely. I turned on the TV and started to look through my yearbook that I had just gotten that day.
Usually the birds would get kind of excited when someone came home and would start chirping, but I noticed it was kinda quiet and there wasn't a whole lot of movement in the big cage that Princess and Lucky's dad Peppy shared (Lucky was in another cage, possibly with Speckles or siblings).
I put the yearbook down and went over to the cage and saw Princess in the corner at the bottom of the cage. She was upside down and it looked like her neck was probably broken. I immediately started crying and called my parents again.
"MAMA PRINCESS IS DEAD! PRINCESS IS DEAD!"
I was screaming and crying. I didn't know what to do.
I think I heard my mom starting to get upset and she said they were almost home.
I kept looking at her and paced around while crying and sat down and cried too.
We believe that she had been chewing on an extension cord that was close to the cage that powered their nightlight. She possibly chewed a little too far and *zap.*
The sad thing is, we never saw Princess chewing that cord, but Peppy chewed on it a lot. Peppy was Lucky's dad, but he was the meanest little fucking bird there was. He almost killed Lucky after she hatched. She wouldn't have lived had it not been for my sister noticing Lucky dangling by her toes in Peppy's mouth. She was lucky to have been found.
Why did it have to be Princess that died? Peppy was the asshole that chewed on the cord all the time. He deserved it much more than she did.
But that's life.
And why did I have to be the one to find both Princess and Lucky dead?
That's life- and death.
My mom said, "I'm sorry you had to find her [Lucky] like that." I said, "It's alright. It wasn't the first time."
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