Charlie

Just a quick email to say goodbye to my little honeyeater, Charlie. From previous posts people know I brought him up from a tiny bird and even though he lost feathers on his head in the last six months he was still as terrific as ever, and then WEdnesday night I was rewiring a standard lamp and went upstairs to check my emails and charlie cam sort of flopping onto my hand (he often sits on the lamp near my computer with the Cassidy dol a fan sent me - or on the shower rack (see pic) , and he couldn't stand up.

He threw up a few times so i didn't know if he'd eaten something weird but he very rarely ate anything I didn't hand to him directly (even if he dropped it he'd expect me to pick it up again - he seemed to thinkI was his mother and seemed never to reach bird adolescence - certainly he was always a joy, which was very different from my adolescence) ) and so I figured he was just sick inside and so I lay down with him for a while.

I tried to put him on a heat pad to keep warm but he kept flopping back to me to we sat together for ages (i know this sounds totally corney but it's what happened) I knew he was dying, he was just so tired and soft and floppy and I told him lots of stories about stuff we'd done (I know, I know, I'm a sook, and I realise he doesn't understand, but it stopped me from crying and he's always liked me burbling on to him in the past - well, he never flew away in exasperation anyway) and then Stuart came home from band practice and we made up a bed on the floor (I love floor sleeping) and we tried to stay up with him because he seemed so weak and a bit confused but eventually I'm sorry to say we fell asleep and in the morning he had died.

He didn't look like Charlie anymore. He seemed grey rather than brown, and all the well, fluff and vavoom had left him, he also seemed a bit flat (it's alright, I didn't roll on him in the night) and his eyes were tiny from having sunken back into his head) (birds have very large eyes compared to their head size and his were a bit Rodney Dangerfield because he'd lost all his head feathers, so this totally transformed his face and, I think I'm glad of that) and we buried him in the pot of flowers that were his favourite.

Then I sobbed for two days and now when I go out I have to wear humungous glasses because my eyes are red and awful looking. I've been scrubbing the whole house (much to Stu's joy) and moving stuff around trying to get rid of little Charlie things because they just make me burst into tears again. So I just keep a picture of him (and now spend my days working and writing my book and spoiling my cockatiels - and finding all the little spots Charlie seemed to have decided to sneak into to do a little poo).

I don't mean to write one of those 'Dear Diary' type of posts because that wasn't the point of having a blog but today I just had to. Sorry to all the non-bird people.

I miss you, Charlie (Jan 05 - July 07)