Tweety and Polly

Today I'm still thinking about birds, but not the barnyard variety.  I'm remembering Tweety and Polly, Mama's parakeets.

My Mama loved animals.  All animals.  When I was growing up we generally had big dogs outside and sometimes a chicken, duck or rabbit too, and small dogs, cats, and birds inside.  Mama added fish to the mix later in life, but when I lived with her it was just the cats, dogs, and birds.

There were always horses in the yard, but they were never our horses.  I did get to feed them at times, ride them at times, and pet them a lot, but they were not mine, and I was reminded of that often, but I digress.

Birds.

When I was growing up Mama had a big birdcage that looked like this without the thing on top:

At one point we had four parakeets living there, but most of the time we just had Tweety and Polly. 

Tweety was a green parakeet that looked like this:

He was a handsome thing and he knew it. Tweety was so spoiled.  He would let you hold him a very long time without complaining, and he would sit on your shoulder while you walked around the house when the cats were outside, but I didn't let him do that often because I had bird poop down my back too many times. 😉
  
Polly was a bluish white parakeet that looked like this:

She was so very pretty.  I always wanted to hold her and pet her, but she was cranky, and she would bite!

We still don't know why they died other than they were over a decade old at the time.  I imagine they died of old age.  It is so sad to lose a pet, but those two had as happy a life as any caged bird can have.

Sometimes Mama would put the cats outside and let Tweety and Polly fly around the house.  We had high ceilings and wooden valance boxes over the curtains in that old house. Tweety and Polly loved to perch on top of the valance boxes and stare down at us while making that smug little bird "nah nah" sound as if to say, "You can't catch me now!"

They'd always go back in their birdcage when they got hungry, so we always did catch them, of course. 

Mama would talk to those birds.  She'd say, "Talk a little bit?  Talk a little bit?" or "Polly want a cracker?" Over and over and over.  You see, her sister, Ellen, had a parakeet that she had trained to say, "Love you," and such as that.  Mama was convinced that she could teach her birds to talk too, but Tweety and Polly never really talked.

Later in life Mama had a cockatiel that could say a few words, but he/she (We were never really sure which.) mostly loved to imitate the alarm clock or the security code or phone number beeps.  It was pretty funny. 

Tweety and Polly never did any of that, but they sure did sing.  It was a happy sound.  Made the cats crazy, of course, which is probably why they did it, but I just loved to hear them sing. 

When Polly died and Tweety was very old and lonely, Mama was afraid at his age a young bird companion might hurt him, but she worried about him being alone and lonely, so she bought him a mirror.  Tweety would stand in front of that mirror and talk and talk and talk so happily.  He didn't feel alone anymore I guess. 

Tweety would turn his head and do those little lovey chirping sounds...almost cooing...to the beautiful bird in the mirror.  It was good to see him happy.  

Sometimes though that bird in the mirror would just piss him off (probably because it mimicked him all the time) and he would squawk at it menacingly.  They always made up in the end though. 😉   

One morning when Mama woke up, she went to feed Tweety and change his water and found him dead on the bottom of his cage.  She cried all day long and into the night.  Inconsolable.  It makes me sad to think about it.  We knew it was bound to happen one day, but that didn't matter.

The heart wants what it wants.  If the heart wants its little green bird, it is gonna break in two when it discovers the bird has passed away.

Sometimes I like to think of Mama up in Heaven with all her loved ones, her parents and siblings, aunts and uncles, and all her animals plus Tweety and Polly.  I bet Mama is in such a happy place right now.  A piece of her died everytime she lost a person or a pet.  I'm thinking she's whole again now.  That is such a happy thought that I think I will end here.

I'll write more by and by.