Okay, so we make
the choice to have pets, and so we know what we are getting ourselves into. The
joy, the laughter, the games—the vet bills!
What we really
don’t think about—and we should not ever
let this affect our decision to adopt a pet—is how we will handle it when they
die.
My answer to
this is really pretty simple: give a hundred percent of your love to your
family, friends, and pets, because to give any less is a betrayal of them and
of you. Obviously I am talking about the core people in your life, not those
who exist on the outer fringes (friends who are really just acquaintances and
distant relatives).
Anyway, we were
talking about pets…
We don’t think
of them dying, and if we do we convince ourselves it won’t be that hard. Fact
is, it is hard! It’s really hard when
they die.
Oscar died
today. Oscar was a beautiful blue budgie. He was my son’s pet, adopted when we
moved back from four years living in Singapore, (daughter adopted a cat).
Leaving school and friends a second time was hard (the first time was when we
left NZ to live in Singapore), and so I asked the children to think about
adopting a pet, to give them something to look forward to, to make the journey ahead more appealing! We arrived back in
Christchurch 17th December 2004, and adopted the pets the very next
day. Oscar was a hand reared budgie so was completely tame. He developed a real
knack for sitting on my shoulder and removing my earrings!
He was a funny
bird, and a chatty bird. I never walked past his cage without looking to see
where he was and saying hello. And when I came down in the morning I would
always talk to him, something like “Good morning Oscar. I will just feel these
nagging cats first, then I will uncover you/I’ll uncover you as soon as the
heat pump warms this room up a bit more”.
I might be in
the kitchen making a cup of tea or cooking, and I never realised until now how much a part of my life (our lives) the sound of him eating his
seed was. It was a background sound that was there, as was the sound of him
sharpening his beak on the grit perch. His chattering in the background was a
part of our lives. His calling to the birds outside in summer was a part of the
noise of summer.
Part of the
background of our lives has gone, and the space this little bird filled so
completely, is empty.
Feeling as I do
now, does this make me rethink the whole ‘pets’ thing? Is it worth it? You know
what … it is worth is. I would rather
love Oscar and grieve at his passing, than have not had him in our lives. I
would rather feel my heart break, than have never heard his chatter. Yes, he was
so worth it!
If you are going
to adopt a pet, give them all of your
love, so that when they do pass away, you will know they had the very best
of you. Don’t hold back your love in anything
out of fear of being hurt. Pain in life is inevitable and unavoidable. It will happen.
But what you can do, is make sure you
tip the scales the other way, the way of laughter, joy and love, so that they far outweigh the pain.
I look back over
Oscar’s seven year life and can celebrate the day he did 60 flips round the
perch! I can celebrate the way he loved
seed pressed into peanut butter which was spread over a cracker! I can
celebrate that he could say ‘Hello’ the same as three different people—he could
also say ‘whatchadoin’, ‘budgie buddy’ and one day he called the cats name so
perfectly we couldn’t believe it was him! He went crazy over silverbeet! He loved a piece of toast. He could repeat
a number of different whistles, that we had taught him. We really did not teach
him lots of English words and whistles because we loved the sound of him too!
We loved his chatter! We loved the way he would watch whatever anyone was doing
in the kitchen. The day he started to go downhill, he still watched me making
the birthday cake for my son (Oscar was his
budgie).
Every creature
has a life span. And I believe we are honoured
when we get to take care of a pet for their entire lifespan.
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