Totino gently warbled his last quiet song as he rested in my son's cupped hand. Half an hour later he would close his eyes to drift away from being that soft, warm, beautiful blue and yellow featherball, into the start of a memory. A final stretch of his wings, one last attempt at flight, a wriggle and then silence.
"I think he's dead dad"
Stillness followed where only seconds before the gentlest rise and fall of breath had been moving.
"They're just animals", "just pets", "it's only a bird". We hear these things.
He wasn't my bird, he wasn't the first pet of our family to die. I'd grown up as a child on a farm, seeing death everywhere, becoming used to it in a realistic way. Nature includes death. He wasn't mine and yet here as a late 50's adult I wept with my son. I wept for his pain and loss. I wept because I could only help him navigate bereavement. I wept because even after all these years, the shock of seeing a beloved animal move in seconds from being a little personality to an inanimate body, still shocked me. I wept because I couldn't hold it together in the same way that my son and I couldn't hold this tiny featherweight body and do anything to stop the inevitable.
Totino arrived in our lives together with Phillipe about six years ago. Toto, handsome blue and yellow little fellow. Peep, a creamino white and yellow with pale pink eyes. They joined our family as small scared puffballs, only a few weeks old. We were terrified we would damage them, that they would escape and never find their way back to their cage. They were my son's first pets of his own, living in a massive cage in his room.
For a few weeks we did not dare to let them out. All we could do was gingerly put our hands in the cage to allow them to get used to us. At first this resulted in squawks and hops and an angry blur of small feathers. Then things calmed down.
A piece of millet, offered gently in their direction, would bring them cautiously forward to stretch and peck at the seeds. Soon the same millet offering would bring more attention. Combined with a soft "step up" we soon had a bird perched on our fingers. Their warm feet clinging tightly.
I'll never forget the first time, with an open cage door, Toto saw my son holding up the millet, heard the "step up" and flew across the room to land and eat. Magic was tied up in the buzz, the feathers, the feet and the feeding. When he did the same to me I felt nothing short of childlike wonder. This little bird trusted me enough to answer my call and find me. Then to rest on my finger.
Peep didn't quite manage this though. As a condition of his near albinism his eyesight was not so good. And his flight skills would compare slightly less favourably than a Dodo. He of course didn't know any different. So he would boldly launch himself into the beyond, flapping furiously and then either crash into the side of the cage or make an impromptu thud on the floor. Pretty soon though even this became a routine, as he would patiently wait for a hand to scoop down next to him, where he would casually walk onto it, ready to be lifted to the heights again.
We placed a branch behind the cage, which the birds loved to perch in and bicker. We connected a string of fairy lights between the branch and curtain rail which then became a budgie highway. Side walking up to the top of the curtains to roost. One day we noticed them hanging oddly. Both birds had, over the course of about a year, pecked and unpicked the stitching holding them all together.
Every morning, on removing the cage cover, we were greeted with our own dawn chorus. When the birds wanted attention, these cheeps became ear splittingly loud. When the cover returned at night, the noise subsided and all we heard were gentle burbles and the occasional crash when one of them fell off their perch.
We invented the game of Budgie Ball. A small rolled up ball of tissue paper dropped on the top of the cage would signal the start of a match. Both birds vying with each other to pick up the ball, hop to the edge, drop or throw it off and then with a cocked head watch it fall to the ground.
Whilst my son did his school homework, Toto would join him. Hopping around the desk, pecking at the LED lights on the mouse mat.
At sad moments we all went in to talk to the budgies. At happy moments we smiled with them and shared seeds and Romaine lettuce leaves.
On occasions we ducked as Toto nosily buzzed around our heads, flying tight circles in the air with wings a blur .
If we needed a listening ear they were there, together with a piercing inquisitive understanding eye.
A few weeks ago, we lost Peep. It was heartbreaking to see Toto looking for him. After this Toto stopped singing. He became more affectionate to all of us. He needed us as much as we needed him. He became even more of a companion to my son.
Days ago, as slightly balding Toto perched on my finger, I went to stroke him under the cheek. For the first time in six years he lent in and pushed against my finger. His eyes closed and he just enjoyed the grooming. He had never let me do this before and it was a moment I never wanted to end. The trust shown to me by this little creature left a lump in my throat.
This morning, Toto quietly slept in my son's cupped hand. Totally trusting, just wanting to be held at the end. And we just wanted to hold him too. I knew where this was heading. It was the most beautiful, yet the most terrible moment.
The room is silent now. An empty cage.
And their is the rawness of a second bird shaped hole in our family's heart.
RIP little Toto and Peep. You brought joy.
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