:: Searching for Puck... ::

:: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 ::

So, hey everyone.

I'm kind of scared one of these days it's going to be months before I make it back here. It seems that the more expansive my years, the more narrow grow the days. Even on my days off I'm exhausted, for no real reason. I lose the urge to do anything productive whatsoever, including blog. I hate myself for it sometimes.

Well, most of you will not know Fred, but Fred was my Parrot, and as much a family member to my mom and I as we were to each other. Fred had been in our family since shortly before my birth, and he was born roughly 25 years ago. Mom got him from what were new neighbors when she moved from Hawaii to Sandalwood Road in Villas, NJ.

It hurts me to write about him, even after 22 years together, because, much to my deep and profound sadness, Freddy has passed on. The devastation cannot be put into words...I wept more for the loss of this bird than for any other living thing I can recall. I got sick and for two days felt like my skin had been flayed from my body. My days have been filled with the reminders of missed opportunities to take him to the vet, and I am utterly wasted with relentless guilt for his death. The tears have finally stopped, much to my relief and Joey's as well, but I harbor an intense fear now of my mother's house, for fear the sight of the cage or his grave would send me spiraling over the edge. Even now, I'm not sure if I have passed into the coping stage of grief, or caught in some lucid state of compliant denial when faced with his death.

I have had vivid dreams of Kuan Yin, a great white living alabaster statue, with all the warmth of flesh, who cradles me and the living soul of my much-loved Fred close, when dreams of his jewel-feathers rotting in the autumn ground return to haunt my consiousness again. If not for her intervention, I worry where I would be right now - at the least, mad with grief. I miss him terribly already, and there is no outlet for this sadness, a breed so unlike my mother's own. It is strange to think that we even grieve differently....I've grown up so much.

Last night, I had dreams too, that his Ka, his feathered spirit, brought me an ethereal parcel of memories from my childhood, and let me return for a few treasured moments to a time before my life started its descent. I rapidly and unexpectedly found my mind flooded with the insignifigant but sorely missed facets of youth - the texture of my room's old carpet, my wallpaper, the smell of the linen closet, the taste of water from the garden hose, the sound of my footsteps on the stairs of the band-practice hall my mother played at in Cold Springs Village, the crunch of the oyster shell paths there - so many, many things I feared I'd never remember to properly recall again. I know his spirit brought them to me - Kuan Yin called it his final gift to me. If nothing else, I know he knows at least my sorrow in his passing, that he forgives me and cherishes that I remember him, and have promised to always. My prince-in-feathers, you were my only companion at times in a dismal youth, and I love you. I love how you said my name, how you sang with me, and let me pet your head, but never without a challenge. I love that you could laugh so loud you'd make me laugh too. I love you - every inch of chubby feathers, insistent call, intelligent eyes, and inherent grace - you are always a part of me.

~Fox

:: Fox 10/26/2004 02:34:00 PM [Say what?] ::
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