Wednesday, January 7, 2009 7:49 AM
The world is a vampire, sent to drain. Secret destroyers, holds you up to the flame. And what do I get for my pain? Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game.
~ Smashing Pumpkins, Bullet with Butterfly Wings
I had a horrible world view in 2008. I embraced everything negative, unjust, and unscrupulous that I saw around me, experienced, and remembered, and viewed the world through glasses tainted with bitterness, anger, jadedness, and defeat. Hope had no place in my world and I formed a barrier of numbness around me. 2008 was for all purposes a banner year filled with travel, speaking opportunities, new friends, and a successful consulting practice. Yet I kept defaulting to a state of waiting for the next negative event in my life to occur, the next obstacle to overcome, the next let down, the next betrayal. The happy, positive, good things in life were anomalies…life was about suffering, surviving, overcoming, and survival of the fittest.
That all changed yesterday.
So this is Noah. Noah was our companion for the last 10 years. Note I said “companion” and not “pet”. Bird people get it, but for those that have never owned a bird: they’re smarter than dogs, more independent than cats, and have the personality of a Hollywood star.
We got Noah literally days out of the egg. He looked like this, but with green and peach obviously. Every morning I’d get up early to hunger cries, mix his special food, wrap him in a blanket and proceed to hand-feed him using a plastic syringe. As he grew, my wife helped teach him how to fly by tossing him up over our bed and letting him try to flap down on his own. We saw him grow through all his early stages until he became an adult.
Life moved on, and we experienced a tonne of stuff that I won’t get into here…but through it all, Noah was with us. While I was out traveling or working late he was at home keeping my wife company. When we experienced the loss of loved ones, he was there reacting to our emotion. When we were frustrated, he was the clown that would try to cheer us up. Before we knew it, Christmas 2008 had arrived.
Noah had gotten sick before…little colds and such…so when he started to show symptoms of a cold and began sleeping a lot, we assumed he wasn’t feeling well but thought nothing serious. We also had a *horrible* experience with one vet in the city a few years back, and not a lot of places take birds. A really bad bug was going around, as everyone seemed to be getting sick at work, within our family, and with our friends.
Noah’s condition got worse over Christmas and New Year’s. His breathing was faster now and you could hear a crackling sound whenever he breathed. He was constantly sleeping now, and started getting very weak. He didn’t fly, he didn’t chirp. Age was also catching up to him: while some lovebirds can live to 15 or 20, its very rare…most average at 10. He was 9 and a half.
Monday night he was different…indecisive, skittish…Yesterday I took him to a new vet. I was hoping that there was still time, that we could still get some medication or something to help him…that we could bring him back and everything could go back to how it was before December.
While we were in the examination room waiting for the vet, there was a couch and I sat with him resting on my chest. I noticed he was breathing differently: through his mouth now, as if gasping for air. Reality set in…he didn’t have much time left. This sounds crazy, but I tried to talk him into fighting…to hang on for just a little while and wait for the doctor…that we would get something for him.
His legs were limp by this time, his wings hanging loosely. He tucked his head to the side and shook once…twice…and was gone. There is something so personal, so mystical, about seeing a life…any life…end. We see visions of death on TV all the time, we experience it at a distance, but to physically hold something as it passes from this world…to see a glimpse of the fate that we’re all hurtling towards…to see your own mortality in the passing of another…and processing the loss that you’ve just experienced…that is something the most realistic documentary cannot convey.
The vet came in just as I was placing him back in his carrier. She was very nice, considering the awkwardness of the situation, and explained that it sounded like pneumonia based on his symptoms. She also said that at his age and with his sickness, he may not have survived the exam. I left, and got into the truck.
I began to put on my 2008 world view glasses. 2009, and here’s how it starts. Not unexpected, of course the world is going to piss on you again…its what the world does! It’s about loss and despair, and…then I stopped. And I cried. And I took off those glasses.
I thought about how precious life really is. How we are all one second away from not being here. How one second separates us from those that have passed on before us. How so many of the things of this world get in our way and become our focus when in the grand scheme they rob us of precious time that we’re already too short on.
I thought back on this past year. How I allowed all the positives of my year get overshadowed by the small blips of negative…or the negative I brought along with me from years past, and how I had robbed myself of experiencing the joy of those moments.
Of course, I also thought about losing Noah and what that would mean. How I had just taken for granted that he would always be there: eating off our plates, sitting on hangers while we did laundry, shredding the newspaper while we read it. He had become such a mainstay in our life we never considered what life without him would be like.
What other good things in my life have I just taken for granted, or assumed would just be there, or never really appreciated before? How have I gotten to the point where you assume the bad and count the good as an anomaly?
So with 2009 starting, I’m not going to make any resolutions or predictions or any of the other stuff that most people do when a new year rolls around. Instead, I’m just going to try and take the final lesson my little companion helped me realize:
The importance and need to seek out the good instead of just accepting the bad in people, in ourselves, and in our circumstance.
Our time here is unbelievably precious. Life, as fragile and finite as it is, holds immense power. My life, your life, has the ability to alter the lives of others, has the ability to alter your surroundings, your environment. But its up to us, especially now when so many are experiencing shared hardships all over the world, to try and persevere in seeking out the good that exists.
You don’t need Deepak Chopra or Oprah or anyone else to give you the answers to life. Sometimes it can just take a few ounces of feathers, beak, and love to do that.
RIP Noah.
D