I had to bury my sweet cockatiel today. She would have been 16 in July. I just keep asking God how much more do I have to suffer. She was fine this morning. I went to check her food and water and visit with her about noon. She was at the bottom of her cage. At first I didn't realize anything was wrong and I was chatting away. Then I noticed she didn't move. My heart is so heavy. I called K and he came home and we buried my BabyGirl.

I remember the first time I saw her at the pet store. We always went there to see the birds and animals and other little creatures they sold. They had a new batch of baby cockatiels and this particular one came and stuck its head right through the bars to be petted. I fell in love. Of course I didn't want to pay seventyfive dollars to own a bird. We always had parakeets, you can find them for five to ten dollars but for some reason they never lived very long. But I couldn't get the little bird off my mind. Every week for about a month, we went by the pet store and I was excited that the little bird was still there. It waddled to the bars on the cage and stuck it's little head out. A worker came and took it out of the cage and put the little cockatiel on his shoulder. It snuggled against his neck and was as content as could be. He told me that it was a female and he had been hand taming all the baby birds that were in the cage.

When I got home I told K about her. This was the first time I had ever considered paying that much for a pet. All the pets we ever had were usually given to us. We had bought a few fish for our aquarium and a couple of parakeets, but those were basically inexpensive. This little cockatiel was special. K went with us to the petstore and I told him if she was still there she was coming home with me. And she was, she waddled up to the bars and stuck that little head out. She came home with me that day. She was my BabyGirl. We were the two females in the house. I miss her already.