Saying Goodbye To My First Forever

On my 13th birthday, my mom asked me for a wish list so I jotted down the desires of a bookish adolescent, which included the latest installment of “Eragon” and probably a tennis racket. Item #10 was “a bird.”

I had wanted a bird for years. I grew up with dogs. We also dallied with hamsters (including Siberian dwarf hamsters who apparently rape each other except for the sixth day of the week, or so my parents and prepubescent me discovered one Christmas Eve); guinea pigs whose cage and reek came to engulf my bedroom; and a multitude of goldfish, the last of which cannibalized each other until none remained (a mathematical mystery to this day). However, I chirped about wanting a parrot for many months to which no consideration was given, at least from my mom.

The story goes, my mom had already bought me gifts, none of which were on my list, which itself was a haphazard, procrastinated summary of spurious hopes. She gave the list to my dad on my birthday when he asked if he could get anything. She never thought to say, “Obviously don’t get a bird.” But I came home from eighth grade to a golden-green parakeet I promptly christened “Melon.”

In the succeeding months, my mom decided Melon was lonely as the sole avian in our household of four plus a fifth (our dog). She instructed my dad to fetch Melon a companion whose ownership my younger brother could claim. At the pet store, my brother selected the most vicious parakeet he could find, whose talons and beaks he never experienced because as the older brother, it was my job to clip our newfound demon bird’s nails.

“What about this bird, though?” my dad interrupted us. He had found a four-week-old cockatiel chick, one of a hundred in the shop, but whose shy, yet sassy demeanor shone even in infancy.

Of course, my mom said to bring back one more bird, not two more. But we bought Abby that day and the demon bird. So my bedroom once more became a zoo.

Abby was too young to actually know her gender. In the early days, she was “Abby,” a moniker easily converted into Abigail or Abery. (From middle school, I had two respectable friends named similarly - or at least one was Abigail and the other Avery). She was also too young to come home with us that first day. I don’t know if my mom first believed us when we said we now had three birds, but soon she drove me up to the pet shop every day for a month. Abby had to be weaned, fed from a bottle of puréed mush until she was old enough and smart enough to feed herself. The store owner came to know me as the overly excited teenager who sprinted through the store to take his baby cockatiel out and just wander around cooing to her for 30 minutes or longer if I convinced my mom to run errands and come back for me.

Finally, Abby came home with me. We bought her a gorgeous white cage that could sit in any parlor, but instead had its own quarters in my room. We bought her all the toys, we tried to socialize her with the parakeets (I’m not sure who rejected who), and she soon became the second dog. We already had a dog, but based on our dog’s age and wisdom, the dog had no interest in hunting Abby. Abby bounced around the house atop my head or clinging to my shoulder. When she heard the front door open, she sang to be let out. Many mornings, she wandered around my pillow as I lay in bed, picking at my hair, papers, phone cords, and any calluses she could find. Birds give free pedicures.

At around the two year mark, I decided definitely Abby was, in fact, Abigail. Male birds are often the more colorful and vocal ones. Other than whistling for me and screeching when ignored for too long, Abby showed no propensity for mimicking human speech. She also showed her, well, lack of true colors. She remained a muted gray with cheeks blotted orange. Prepubescent me would have been disappointed at her failure to become the most dazzling Pokémon, but who was I to reject the bird I loved, my first ever pet, who I fed, bathed, and put to bed nightly? A child only has a first pet once, and it is rarely the puppy their parents “give them” yet who runs to the adult for its walks, food, and car rides, all responsibilities few teens consistently provide. Our family dog was the same for me: despite choosing her at the pound and naming her, my dad was her caregiver, who she followed around the house for scraps and whose ears she perked up for. But it was Abby who whistled for me; it was only me who could cut Abby’s nails and receive forgiveness if I cut them too close; and it was Abby who flew from my parents’ and brother’s shoulder to mine when given the chance.

When Abby was about four, I went to college, a looming inevitability that any young owner and pet must endure that rivals high school sweethearts parting ways. Of course, at 18, leaving my pet behind was a lesser anxiety that only haunted me when I visited home to Abby’s cooing and her even more urgent calls to escape the cage and nuzzle my hair. It was actually on one of my extended homecomings that Abby laid her first egg.

Captive female birds do not always lay eggs despite the ability to do so. It is a sign of comfort, safety, health, and nesting. When it first happened, I thought she was dying — egg delivery in any species involves blood. Thankfully, she dropped an egg without incident (fellow bird owners know this is not the simplest or least risky process). Over the years, she repeatedly laid eggs only when I visited and only when I visited for more than four days. It seemed I was her mate. She loved me in a slightly different way than I loved her.

When I started to consider grad school, I did not consider her. Selfish are the whims of young adulthood, even when your bird is your triumph and joy and whose photos you share whenever someone tries to show off photos of their puppy (“Your mutt’s cute, but have you seen my cockatiel?”). Indeed, Abby was my pride, the child I gushed about, my fun fact to share in new introductions (“I own a bird”), my constant accessory in selfies, and an illustration of my individualism (how trite to own a four-legged mammal!). I kept a photo of her, a fuzzy, not very good quality one, on my dresser. But when I got her at 14, I wasn’t prepared for the 16 to 18 years she was expected to live, especially when I discovered wanderlust at 15 after meeting a returned Peace Corps volunteer.

Fortuitously for Abby, grad school kept me close enough to continue our conjugal visits. Her egg laying slowed. She lost a few feathers. Still, she ran around my bed and pecked at my keyboard while I slaved on my dissertation or slept in on school breaks. She was patient when I didn’t take her out because I went out to see friends, or as patient as a bird imprisoned in her cage has to be. My mom took her out a lot when I was away; she was her adoptive mother. However, when my parents got a new dog after our old one passed away — a ferociously inquisitive dachshund mix prone to lunging at fast-moving objects like birds flying across the room — Abby became the second tier princess of the house, locked in her quarters and permitted escorted ventures beyond her cage only in the safety of my bedroom, my mom’s office, or when the ferocious dachshund went for walks. I felt bad for her and wanted to bring her up to a Richmond, but also cited the immediate challenges, namely a drafty row house apartment (birds are prone to pneumonia), my wayward overnight escapes (who would watch her?), and did I even have more time to give her than my parents?

By the time I moved to DC this year and got an apartment, I put off moving Abby because she had gotten old. She looked almost as beautiful and perky as her one-year-old self until you spotted the balding on her chest and the way her eyes dipped closed more frequently. She seemed more willing to rest, a crown on my head or perched on my toe, content and peaceful. Plus, the egg laying had stopped forever. I worried what a four hour drive would do to her. In her early years, we took her on family vacations to mountain cabins. She usually refrained from eating after the journey, tussled by the car ride and a strange new habitat. Eventually we relied on our neighbors and then my aunt to care for her when we left town.

You always know your pets will go before you. I had lived and sobbed when my golden retrievers passed when I was 7 and 9, my first two siblings. I teared up and ran seven miles the morning my mom told me our next dog passed. Then there were the goldfish (RIP), the hamster who died of dehydration (turns out, fish aquariums do not replace wire cages), and our guinea pigs who we had given to a teacher’s classroom before they left this world after another three years (would they have lived longer if not exposed to the grabs of kindergarteners?). Also our parakeets has been long gone, but they were far more attached to each other than to any of us humans.

I placed Abby‘s ending as eventual, but not so soon. On some long car rides back to Richmond in grad school, after kissing Abby goodbye (always my last goodbye, even after I hugged my parents, I removed her from a cage for a final smooch), I pondered what I would do when she passed. She was the love of my life, who had seen me through multiple periods (fat me, lesbian-looking me, fit me, employed me), my constant companion when home, my equivalent to man’s best friend - and arguably better because she showed affection so well, preening my hair and giving me eggs — what would I do when she was gone? What can you do? She is just a bird. Even if she was a person, what is to be done?

The last time I saw Abby was the morning before I went on a work trip. I cannot remember exactly how long I took her out of her cage or if I gave an extended goodbye — I had summoned a Lyft — but I definitely blew a kiss into her cage. She was old, but not that old. I spent the next three weeks on a ship with limited internet access. I emailed my mom hello and said to kiss our ferocious dachshund and coo to Abby for me.

Apparently, Abby died the morning after I left. My dad came in and found her at the bottom of her cage. My parents didn’t tell me because my work trip was already rough, and what can you do? My mom said she might have told me if we had talked on the phone. I don’t resent that I wasn’t told; it makes sense. However, I arrived home three weeks later, after midnight, and was about to go into my room when my mom said, “I have some bad news.”

I said flatly, “Abby died.”

“Yes. I’m so sorry.”

“Okay.” I think I added, “I guess she was old.”

My parents buried her beneath my bedroom window. They left me her favorite toy, a gray plush she sat on for years and years, when she wasn’t hanging off her door waiting for me to let her out.

After my mom went to bed, I sat at the kitchen table for moment and texted my friend, “Omg Abby died.” I felt so numb. I didn’t feel upset. I hadn’t eaten in a few hours and had put out food before my mom said it. But I couldn’t eat. Eventually I kept repeating her name, and it was the sort of cry that reminds you of puking over a toilet, where there is no particular beginning or end or sense. When I walked into my bedroom, her corner of the room was barren. They already removed her cage.

When I woke up, I laid in bed and heard rustling. I thought it was Abby who I always let out so she could roam around while I continued to sleep. Except it was just our dog down the hall. No Abby.

Later, when I went down the hall, I shut my door. I always shut the door to keep our dog out from Abby. I have realized I no longer have to do that. I can keep my door open at night now so the dog can curl on my bed, unheeded, and I don’t have to double check Abby is safely in her cage. Because she’s no longer in her cage.

The next day, my mom told me she had a gift for me. Apparently, before Abby died, my mom found an artist who painted cockatiels. She had ordered me a painting to hang in my apartment, a late Christmas gift that had nothing to do with her imminent departure. It arrived after Abby left. What great, stupendous timing. It’s weird how all that works out. It breaks my heart that I left again and I never knew it was the last time, but maybe she did, but there’s really nothing you can do.

My friend reminded me, beautifully, that pets are just pure. “They love you and aren’t really socialized to have specific expectations of you as long as you aren’t cruel or abusive,” she said. “Just happy to have you in the capacity that you can offer.”

It still is the worst to say goodbye to your first forever, but that is the cold, hard fact of living and especially pets. She was 16 and I had had her for all of those years. But now she’s flown away.