The loss of a beloved pet and kids... [View all]

[MontanaMama]

Last night at this time, our precious Kiwi was here and happily singing “If You’re Happy And You Know It” from my shoulder while I made dinner for our family. Kiwi was a 2 1/2 year old Canary Winged Bee Bee parrot that belonged to my 14 year old son. Kiwi has a flight cage and was in it sometimes and out of it more than he was in. He was happiest on a shoulder and spent the majority of his time on my son’s, mine and sometimes my husband’s. When my son was in school, Kiwi came to work with me...I have a cage in my office for him. Last night after dinner, my son went out to the street to run with the neighborhood kiddos like any other summer evening. Kiwi was on top of his cage munching on some seeds and tossing his sparkle ball around. I finished dishes and walked out front to talk to a neighbor...my husband followed shortly after. Kiwi did what he has done so many times the last three years...he jumped off his cage and went to look for his people. He always finds one of us but this time he didn’t. We have been nursing our 16 year old cat at the end of his life...Louis has renal failure and we honesty thought he would not live through this week. He isn’t eating and he is drinking very little. Last night, however, Louis came to life and killed our special, wonderful little bird...the bird who loved to tell us what a pretty bird he was, what a good boy he was...the bird who sung the Addams Family theme and was learning the Andy Griffith song. He was supposed to live 20 years but he live 2 1/2. It’s not Louis’ fault. He was being a cat. He had never shown the slightest interest in Kiwi before but...last night. Today he is back in his warming hut and not interacting at all. It’s a tragic, horrible mystery...what happened last night.

I took the day off to be with my son. He is grieving the first loss of a pet of his own. His tears come in waves as do mine. We’re a mess today. We miss Kiwi desperately...the little green hand full who occupied so much of each of our days. We buried Kiwi behind our apple tree. We carefully wrapped him up with a meal of his favorite treats...a pecan, a grape and a little piece of cheese. I am devastated by the events of last night and as bad as I feel I would take 100 times more if I could take my son’s pain away. Watching him hurt is almost unbearable.

Tomorrow I will call our vet regarding dear Louis...we’ve had him since he was a feral kitten abandoned with his siblings in a shed at our shop. The vet told me a week ago that we were close to having to make a decision. I don’t know what comes next. I didn’t plan on losing two precious pets so close together. It is just awful.

I know the news is busy tonight and there is a lot going on. I know Kiwi was just a little green bird but he was a Condor in our hearts. This has been a really hard day.