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Birds and Words

My grandfather passed away when I was 24 and I fell silent for a week. I moped around my apartment ignoring parrots, leaving my red-tailed hawk in her mews and mourned. My grandmother had also passed three years earlier and I couldn’t shake the thought there was no one left who had witnessed my childhood. There was no one to tell tales of my high jinx, to remember what I had forgotten and to argue what I misremembered. They were gone, a childhood of shared stories gone with them.

I had lived with my grandparents from the time I was four until I went away to college. These were years full of birds, from the first fledgling found, to the recalcitrant crows I bought from the local bird farm, to the Christmas cockatiel that became my first parrot. My grandfather encouraged my feather fancy from the very first day. In retrospect, I believe this gave him dual pleasure, that of my joy and of my grandmother’s terror. She was petrified of the combination of confined spaces and free flying birds. And my companions were often on the loose. I was a quiet careful little girl and was expected to be, but the bird ruckus was allowed and I embraced it.

With both of my grandparents gone, I thought the ruckus was gone with them and the stories and memories should be allowed to vanish into my adulthood. I wondered if it was just time to grow up. Bird games were for children. So for days, I retreated into my memories and felt sorry for myself, making every person and creature that cared about me uncomfortable with my misery until apparently, Ty had had enough.

Ty asked clearly and simply in my own exasperated voice, “Why are you so grumpy?”

“Why are you so grumpy” was something I often said right after Ty took a swing at me. Usually I was about to lose a chunk of flesh because I was grumpy, not the bird. If I weren’t so sullen, I probably would be paying closer attention to whether or not I was doing something to deserve to be bit. So it was an ironic phrase in general, but a perfectly good question for the moment. Still, he had never said this before and it startled me.

I sat down in front of his cage, wondering if I had heard him right and when he asked again, I told him why I was grumpy. I explained what and who I had lost. I told him all the stories of bird ruckus that I could remember. Ty had asked and I needed to tell. I didn’t care that he was a parrot and didn’t understand, he laughed when I laughed and that was enough.

And when I was finished giggling and crying I was left with the realization that the stories were mine to keep. I realized that if my words rang back from one grey parrot, then maybe they rang back from everything I touched. What else would Ty say? What more would be told? Maybe stories lived forever and maybe in this my grandparents did too. And come to think of it, maybe my life was destined to be one long bird ruckus. Wouldn’t my grandparents be pleased?

Catch up on Tuesdays with Ty