Talk to an Angel

I really want to talk to my Mama today. I really need to talk to my Mama today. I want to pick up the phone and dial her number and have her answer in her sleepy nap after lunch voice and say, " What is wrong sweetheart?" 
So I can say, "Nothing."
And she will say, "No, I hear it in your voice."  She could always hear it in my voice. 
Then she would always say, "Tell me all about it....but first I have to go potty."

That would make me laugh and suddenly my problems would seem less urgent and by the time she got back to the phone I would be able to talk without crying and we would figure out the solution to anything in the world. But I can't call my Mama any more.

I have her with me now. She is in the china closet in a hand-blown perfume bottle, at least part of her ashes are. I sprayed them with the perfume she always wore, White Linen by Estee Lauder. Sometimes I take the bottle, pull out the stopper and inhale what used to be my mother. The bottle stands in front of a picture of her. I don't normally have personal pictures in my living area but I am comforted having her there watching me eat my breakfast.

It isn't as if my mother died yesterday or even last week or month.  She died on 13 March 2014. We had her service on 7 April 2014, the day between my brother Don's 69th birthday and my parents' 63rd wedding anniversary. Although she had been suffering from vascular dementia and diabetes for about 5 years, she was still a vibrant and loving member of our family. She had gradually lost the ability to read, cook, drive, figure, and keep house. The good thing is that my father did such a good job with everything that she thought she was still keeping house. My Papa would do anything for her. Theirs was such a true love that when she would have a potty accident, he would think it was "cute." Her actual death is still too raw to write about.  I thought I could but I can't nearly a year later.

So much has happened in that time. My divorce finally came through and although the financial details are still being settled, at least I am free and know where I stand emotionally. I am worth more than being second best, especially after giving up so much to move around all those years as an Army Wife. By the time it was final we had been married 34 years. Even with my mother's death, I still figured the taxes last year. Good wife to the end, eh?

My son has been out of work because of the sequestration and other reason's I don't understand. I worry about him and his marriage and his life and his relationship........you just don't want to know.

I have tried the dating game....as much as you can when your life is in  divorce limbo. I have met a couple of nice men and some not so nice men. Actually, if I could combine about 3 of the ones I have met into one man I would be golden. Alas, that is not possible so I am back on eHarmony and I hate, hate, hate it. I pray to God every night for someone I can just talk to and be companionable with.  Is that asking too much?

What would you say, Mama? That's just it.  I don't know.  Until the last time I talked to her, my mother always surprised me with her wit, wisdom, and love. It is like all the love has gone out of the world and I don't know what to do.

I killed my bird today

I woke up this morning to my bird frantically scrambling around the back of the cage trying to get my attention.  As I tried to will myself into consciousness, I idly wondered if I had given Franny and Zooey water yesterday. Yesterday had been a lost day for me.  My hip had been hurting and it had been a rainy day so I had lolled in bed for most of the day dozing and watching "Bones" and "Bar Rescue." During the day Missy Lu and Moonbeam had snuggled with me in the damp cold. I remember laughing at the birds jumping up and over their top perch over and over, chirping all the while. I should have gotten up at that point to water and feed them but I just burrowed deeper into the pillows and closed my eyes to better listen to them sing. 

Sometime around 5 I pulled myself out of bed to prepare for the coop monthly board meeting and to feed the animals.  The problem was I forgot to water and feed the birds. I got home from my meeting after 10 exhausted and went right back to bed.  Being the terrible parent I am, I again forgot to feed my birds or turn on their heating lamp.  I did watch the recording of "Dancing with the Stars" and "Bletchley Park." During "Bletchley Park" I kept hearing birds singing when people were inside.  I have this new Bose sound system and I thought,  "Wow, this is really good. They captured bird sounds from the grounds." Now I know it was the death song of my poor Zooey. All I had to do was get up off that bed and go look and I might have saved him.

This morning when I did finally get out of the bed and walk across those few feet to the desperate fluttering of Franny, I found a dry water dish, no food, no warming light and Zooey curled up on his side on the bottom of the cage in a nest of grass.  He was still warm when I picked him up. His eyes were opaque and his beak tightly shut so even as I tried to give him water and stoke him back to life he was too far gone to receive help.

 I had filled the water and seed cups before trying to revive Zooey so all the time I was working on him, Franny was devouring food and drinking silently. In fact, even now, hours later, she has not made a sound. She just sits there looking at me accusingly. I can't stand it. She is sitting up there under his body in its shroud rocking back and forth wondering what to do.  I am going to have to find her a mate to help her....

It is now hours later and I have found a bronze wing mannikin song site and played them for her. She really responded to two of them.  I am now going to try to link to the two she liked.

http://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Lonchura-cucullata?&view=3

XC120623

XC116734

She responded to the first with answers and movement and the second by going down and drinking and eating.  Maybe if I can't find her another mate I can play the songs to remind her to eat and drink.  Franny has never been the smartest bulb in the chandelier.  It once took us 8 hours to get her back in the cage because she couldn't figure how to fly back in even though Zooey was coaching her the whole time. 

What is a Bronze Winged Mannikin (Lonchura cucullata) you might ask?  It is a small finch found in the middle to the southern African continent. I bought them because they were the cheapest birds at Petsmart.  It seems as though they are now very rare and extremely difficult to breed in captivity.  Today after much research, I have found only a handful of breeders in the US. No chain pet stores carry them as far as I can tell. So much for finding Franny a companion. They look like this:

The little blackish spot at the top of the wing looks iridescent green in real life, hence the name Bronze Winged Mannikin. The body color looks more grey than brown as well. On my computer screen, the picture is nearly life sized at 3 1/2 inches. They are tiny, tiny birds. I have called all over asking about them and no one has any.  It is like they wee the flavor of the month and then they disappeared.  What am I to do with my little solitary Franny? Let her die of a broken heart?

So I have continued to search as I have been writing this piece in hopes I would have a happy ending but life isn't like that is it? Life is life and some days are just dark and dreary and never get any better. The management never got back to me about what to do with his remains so I think we will bury him in the big flower pot with the hibiscus in the corner of the patio. He will go back to nature soon enough and nothing will be able to get up here to dig him up. I can't leave him on top of the cage much longer and I don't want to put him in the fridge.  I am just so sad because I know this is just the first of so many losses that are so sure to quickly come. Moonbeam is not well. Parents of us all are precarious. Friends, lovers,and even ourselves are at that precipice of death.  Death happens in the blink of an eye when the choice to roll over or get up could make all the difference in the world.