Dealing with Sorrow of Loss of Pets, Our Lovebirds

Our Lovebirds! They look cute? Or they don’t? I could never decide which. May be they would look beautiful outside the cage. They had been with us for past one and half years. Night we would get them inside and during day time, they were left in our balcony garden. This had been the practice for past so many months and we were so used to each other; the birds and us.

Loss of Pets

Today, to our horror we found one of them lay dead inside at the edge of the cage. It was bleeding and bruised at the neck, blood and feathers strewn all over. Ishani and Arundhati were in tears. It must have been a torturous end for the bird. I was too shocked to react. How could it happen in this third floor? What could have killed it? The cage was intact. What made it come so close to the bars of the cage?

Dealing with sorrow of Loss of Pets

Looking around I saw a big brown bird, may be a kite, perched in one of the branches of a tree just across the balcony. Could that have attacked the lovebirds?

Now what? With these two kids(11 and 7) crying incessantly, blaming me for having left the cage in the open and the other love bird totally silent, I was numb. My mother, their Dida (she is no more), had gifted these two pretty yellow lovebirds to them on their birthdays. And just as these thoughts were racing across my mind, Arundhati wailed out, “Dida is dead and now her gift is also dead.”

Dealing with Sorrow of Loss of Pets

I had to do something fast, so I took out the dead lovebird from the cage. It was still warm, and buried it in one of the flower pots. Till now I don’t know how I did it, but I did it, I had to do it. None of us could bear to see it lie limp and lifeless there. Once out of sight, my daughters calmed down a bit. Now their focus was on the other one.

When I suggested we leave it at the pet store they protested vehemently. They were not willing to part with the memory associated to their grandmother. I refused to budge, enough is enough, and birds inside cages don’t look good. “Okay, then get us a dog!” they demanded in chorus.

They immediately searched out a long list of Dog breeds that can be grown as pets.

DOG? Who will look after it; take it out for walks, and bathing? I don’t have so much time. I left the issue pending.

Coping with Loss of Pets

Each person will have their own reason for grieving the loss of pets. Our reason was that it was a gift from their Grandma who is no more. These birds were a pleasant reminder of her. I didn’t have the heart to apply rules of animal cruelty and stuffs like that. Loss of birds was painful but added to that fact was that their grandma’s gift is no more.

The attachment, the guilt of not being able to protect them was eating me away. It felt as if some one took away a part of me. I wanted to cry but I didn’t. Dealing with sorrow of loss of pets wasn’t easy.

This time I have to be more careful. Slowly they outgrew these emotions. Lot of explanation had to be done regarding how birds are more happy when they are free and flying in skies, just like how they feel happy to play outside and not be locked up inside house.

I was angry with the big brown bird that might have attacked one of our lovebirds. I captured it, I mean in my lens. I clicked the picture through the glass pane of my window, so it is not very clear. As I tried to get a clearer picture, the bird flew off. Can you tell me what bird is this… a falcon or is it a kite or…?

Shikra – the bird that ate my pet lovebird

This big bird appeared at my balcony to have a closer look for food. It now has a taste of easy prey and returned to check whether it could prey on one more.

I remember in my childhood, I had two white rabbits as pets. They would go digging around in the garden of our huge lawn much to my mother’s annoyance.

In the evenings we would chase them around to put them back in the hutch. It was fun. Whenever my daughters hear such childhood stories of mine, they are tempted to have some pets. Today living in flats, one can have such pets only in dreams. Read my earlier post on Tech Toys for Tiny Tots.

My mother had given them these lovebirds to satisfy their cravings for pets. One and half years of attachment with the birds… it will take some more time for me to convince them to return the bird to the pet store. I am sure, very soon they will come and tell me to return the lovebird to the pet store on their own.

We resorted to making a small balcony garden with water lily pool where butterflies came fleeting and thirsty birds came visiting.

Also read: How to cope with Grief and Loss of Loved Ones

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