A Bird In the Hand ... Sometimes Doesn't Move

Meet Corky. Well, this isn’t really Corky, but he sure does resemble him. This is a Googled parakeet. Corky was my mother’s parakeet.

My daughter and I killed Corky but we didn’t mean to.

I had given my parents this wonderful living-gift about seventeen years ago when they first moved to Connecticut. My mother had always been an avid bird-fan and my father needed something new to complain about, so I figured this would cover both of them as a meaningful Christmas present.

They each took turns enjoying Corky, trying to get him to speak and cleaning out his little cage. Depending upon the outdoor weather, they would move him from one room to another so he’d stay warm and cozy. They did take excellent care of him, and he seemed to thank them very, very often in his high-pitched bird voice.

Corky quickly became a household word over at mom’s place. He stayed quite popular among the younger grandchildren (and me) for a good couple of years. He was a fine bird.

Mom and dad took a short vacation back to the city to visit my sisters who still lived there. They would only be gone for four days or so, and they asked me to take in their mail, feed and let Sam the dog out a few times a day, and take care of Corky. This was never a problem for me because we lived so close and I liked keeping an eye on things for them.

On the day they were due to return, my daughter and I went over early in the morning to vacuum, dust and clean things up so they could come home to a nice neat house. We let Sam the dog out in their obscenely huge backyard, then we started to dust and clean. There really wasn’t a whole lot to do, and my daughter, being about nine years old wasn’t too keen on helping much.

As I walked into the living room, I noticed her standing by Corky’s cage that hung in a corner by near the fireplace. She was talking to him and petting him through the bars.

I returned to the kitchen and started puttering around when I heard a huge crash and scream from the living room. I raced inside, heart pounding, thinking for sure Sarah Jane had somehow hurt herself.

Corky’s cage was on the floor! SJ was standing there crying and looking rather helpless. I’ve never been the type of mom who can maintain her cool during a trauma, so I stood there and yelled “NOOOO!” then ran to the cage.

“Oh my GOD what happened?” I asked.
“I’m sorry mom, I didn’t mean it! I thought Corky might like a ride so I was twirling his cage around and suddenly it fell off the hook!” she cried.
“Oh God oh God!” I not-so-calmly reacted.

Mind you, my parents were now due back in about an hour. Just great.

I didn’t know what to do first. I tried to calm SJ by telling her “He’ll be okay … you didn’t mean it,” but I kind of already knew better. Let’s face it, birds aren’t the strongest creatures in this world.

I crouched down to the cage and looked at Corky and his eyes were open, his head was moving and one of his wings was slightly moving. “Oh excellent,” I thought … “He’s alive!” I picked up the hand-held vacuum and started cleaning up the mess that the fallen cage made – birdseed all over the place, little fluffy feathers …

Then we realized he was stuck between his water bowl and the bars of the cage. Just stuck there. He wasn’t talking either. Hm.

What happened next, I could never explain in a million years, because it makes less sense than Michael Brown being head of FEMA, but I picked up the phone and called my sister in New York.

“Lynn, oh my God SJ and I dropped Corky’s cage and he doesn’t look so good! What do I do?” I hollered into the phone.

I can only imagine the look on my sister’s face at the time, as she said very calmly, “Okay, first thing, calm down… is there blood? Is he dead?”
“Nope. He’s moving. But he looks stuck between his water bowl and the bars,” I answered, catching my breath.
“Well you have to take him out of there and see if he’s okay - do it slowly,” she offered.

I took him out and held him in my hand and let’s just say that he didn’t seem pleased. His head sort of sagged a little and he didn’t make any attempt to get away, to fly, to speak, or anything at all. I was horrified as he gently closed his eyes while I held him … and stopped moving altogether.

I told SJ to tell her aunt that Corky appeared to be dead. She cried her eyes out and told my sister, then handed the phone to me.

“Listen,” Lynn said, “There’s nothing you can do. What happened, happened … but you HAVE to stay calm for SJ’s sake, and you have to do something with him.”
“D O S O M E T H I N G?” I asked in horror.
“Well yes, you’ll have to bury him before they get home. It will be better that way than seeing him dead,” she explained.
“Oh GOD! I can’t bury Corky!” I cried.
“CALM DOWN!” she ordered, “What choice do you have?”

So SJ and I found a small bag and we put him in it and took it out beside the garage. To take her mind off this yucky experience, I had asked her where she thought would be a nice place to bury him. She told me she thought he might like it right under the window of the garage where birds always build a nest every year. I agreed and we started to dig.

While we were digging, my parents pulled into the driveway, smiles on their faces and beaming with joy to be home again. They saw us out there and assumed we were looking at the other bird’s nests.

Like a five year old caught with her hand in the cookie jar, I ran to my mother and said, “Something terrible has happened! We didn’t mean it!” And she looked at me with horror because she assumed something happened to Sam the dog.

I told her quickly that it was Corky and that we killed him, then I quickly changed it to “I killed him” because I could see the look on SJ’s face.

“But how?” mom quietly asked.
“Well, SJ kind of dropped his cage, but he was still moving - then I did the stupidest thing, I vacuumed right near him and I’m sure the noise scared him to death,” I confessed.
“Well I want to see him. Where is he?” mom asked.

I took her to the place where we had started to bury him, but luckily we hadn’t had time to cover him up. She opened the bag, looked in and took him out. Typical of my mother, she had to confirm that the bird was indeed dead and that I hadn’t been mistaken. I say this with great affection, of course.

“He’s dead,” she said, as though she were the first one to say it.
“Yes, he’s dead,” I agreed.

Apologies were made for the remainder of, I think, that YEAR. Mom insisted that it was just his time to go (good job, mom) and dad just let it ride. They kept saying that it wasn’t our fault and that the same thing could have happened while they were sitting right there. Somehow, I just don’t think so! But parents (and grandparents) are so cool about such things.

So SJ came away from this with a lesson in bird cage twirling, as in "DON’T,” and I came away from it feeling more guilty than I had the day I was late for 9 a.m. Mass because I fell and twisted my ankle on the way to church. (trust me, that's some guilt)

Poor Corky. He wasn’t very old (just about seven), but I suppose he lived a good life while here.

Way to go taking care of mom’s house while they went away on vacation! Woo hoo!

"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words."

Anna Sewell (1820-1878)