But the sadness passed quickly because Andrew's job kept the family on the move. North, south, east and west. Places Delia would point out to me on a map, but I never bothered to learn their names. What did it matter when my world remained essentially the same? The one place that truly sticks out above the rest was the beach house. For two months every summer, no matter where we were living in the country, Delia would move us all, lock, stock and animals, to the airy white cabin on Michigan's northern shore. Poor Andrew missed out on so much, but when he was present, the family seemed whole, exhilarated and truly happy.
Andrew was a good man, if somewhat simple. Smart in terms of his work--some sort of engineering, Delia claimed, but he never looked too deeply beyond the obvious. For example, one day he decided I should have a companion. A bird friend. Delia vetoed the idea--one more animal in the growing menagerie meant one more animal for her to feed and clean up after. But Andrew was determined, so one day he brought us Chloe–my potential mate.
Unfortunately, she was actually a male. A young male. Procured as a hatchling, which made him fairly docile. But he was easily upset and he expressed his frustration by plucking out all his pretty feathers. No one has ever said a bald parrot is an attractive parrot. Baby Girl wouldn't even look at him. If she did, she'd break into tears. One morning, without any warning, “Chloe” toppled off the center bar in our cage and fell to the bottom screen, dead as the drowned flies floating in our water container. For a while I thought the whole transgender humiliation killed him, but it turned out he’d been exposed to a highly contagious avian virus.
It nearly got me, too, but Delia nursed me through – an eye dropper at a time.
The busy school years seemed to fly by as we watched our little girl flourish and grow to adulthood.
These times were punctuated by losses, of course. The old mother went first, poor thing. Followed much too quickly by Todd, Delia's brother. I wish I could say he forgave me for nipping his finger when he was little, but I don't think he did. His death hit Delia hard. In part because she'd just lost her mother, in part because he was so young. Delia told me he died from a disease they called Gay. Humans don’t make sense. You come to understand that after awhile. And they don't age well, either.
As I approached middle age in bird years, my humans were slipping into their twilight. After Andrew retired, he and Delia were as happy as I'd ever seen them. They did everything together. They threw themselves--and a great deal of money--into giving Baby Girl the most dazzling wedding possible. Since they'd traveled so much in their working years, neither seemed inclined to go anywhere--except to the beach house. Summers were filled with grandchildren, now. Baby Girl was a much healthier version of her mother. She popped out three little angels before anyone could get over marveling at the last. The girls loved their Nana and Papa, and, to my surprise, they held me in awe. I never once had to bite any of them. I can't say the same for their friends.
Gradually, small health concerns became major health woes. There were operations, pacemakers, pill boxes on every table. I'd watch them nap, occasionally dozing off mid-sentence. Their little arguments usually wound up making them laugh – at each other and themselves. Always, there was love and forgiveness, hands holding hands as they made their way up the stairs to bed. Slowly. Very slowly.
I knew Andrew was gone before she even awoke that morning. His spirit left in a loud whoosh, down the stairs and out the door – in a hurry to move on. I knew I would miss him, but not nearly as much as she would. If not for the grandchildren--and me--I don't think Delia would have found the will to stick around. For months, she sat on the pretty padded chair a few feet from my perch and looked out the window, never speaking. I began to think I'd never hear her voice again. So, despite my physical limitations, I started telling her a story about a brave and valiant pirate girl who was taken hostage by an evil witch. What I couldn't convey in words, I tried to make up for with affection. I only left her shoulder when she held out her arm to create a bridge straight into my cage each night.
Did my words pull her back from that murky shore where her mate now resided? I doubt it. Quite frankly, I think she decided she couldn’t trust anyone else to take care of me. Baby Girl was a busy professional with three teenage daughters. Their comings and goings were enough to make anyone dizzy. Oh, they might have remembered to feed me, but could they be counted on to talk to me? Cover me up from the draft at night? Challenge my vocabulary?
Obviously, Delia didn't believe so. She kept breathing. Long enough to become a great-grandmother, to witness two more beautiful, elaborate weddings, to welcome a new, young family into her home. Just temporarily, her youngest granddaughter told everyone. "Just until Nana doesn't need me anymore."
We all knew what that meant--even though she didn’t mean it that way. That girl reminds me a great deal of her grandfather.
My beautiful Delia did her best not to die, but age wears on the body--and hers was fragile from the polio. The granddaughter bought her a splendid wheelchair. They put a bed in the front parlor--my room, just as her mother once did for her. She was my companion again, day and night, only much of the time, her spirit wandered. She would remember the early days, but not the recent. She’d forget the face of her beloved granddaughter. The poor girl would leave in tears.
But she never forgot Jack.
“Captain, I really think it's time for me to go, don’t you?” she asked. Four days ago.
What could I say?
“Good-bye, me pretty,” I said, with my best pirate accent. I’d seen my share of movies over the years.
She closed her eyes and her breathing stopped, but her spirit didn’t leave right away. It danced about the room, touching mementos, smiling at a photo or two, then the shimmering light that humans don’t seem capable of seeing stopped at my cage. For a moment, I thought she was going to open the door of my cage. Freedom. But no. Instead, she smiled and kissed my beak. “Journey on without me, dear friend. But I'll be waiting for you.”
Parrots live a hundred years or more, Delia’s father had claimed.
“In the wild,” someone at the wake had stressed. “Their lifespan is considerably shorter in captivity. This one probably won’t last long, now.”
Jack wished his beloved had known that. Perhaps she had.
If he closed his eyes and looked hard enough, he could almost see her--watching from the deck of a pirate ship poised to take them off on their next great adventure.
The End
My Christmas Angel Page 4