Bailey’s Eulogy

I’ve had a horrible day. The kind of day that movies are made of… full of mistakes, off-kilter circumstances, and ends in tragedy.

It started off with looking at the wrong week on my calendar last night, and thinking I’d be on an entirely different schedule, one that didn’t start until 9:30am, and one that gave me a little breathing room on a deadline I’ve been working hard to meet for weeks. But the deadline was really today, and the meeting that I was preparing for was at 8:30am. I found this out at 7:30am today. I still had some work to do for the meeting, and it takes me half an hour to drive to work. I won’t describe my morning tabulations when performed in 5 minutes.

The meeting was stressful, but the team made it through pretty well. I was looking for a time to run home over lunch and let my dog relieve himself, as I didn’t have time to do that when I woke up. (I don’t think I’ve ever done that before to him, poor guy.) But new deadlines piled up and I kept rushing and pushing and getting things done that were all high priority. I kept making mistakes. My brain just wasn’t functioning well and I felt like an idiot several more times throughout the day. As I navigated the day that seemed full of self-inflicted mines, I started to think about after work, and hoping I could at least get done with work in time to prepare dinner for my community group, which I had signed up to do a month ago, when this date looked nice and clear. I was supposed to have dinner there by 6:30pm. The night before I’d written up a menu to use after work when I planned to run by the store. But, I was still pounding away at 5:15pm, and that meant I was going to be stuck in rush hour traffic.

By the time I got home at 5:45pm, I only had time to rush my dog out the door and let him do his business, and give my cat, Meg, some food. Now you need to know that this past weekend, I’d adopted a new cat, and have been keeping him isolated in my home office, letting him get used to the apartment and hoping Meg would decide he was a really fun playmate, rather than continue growling at him and hissing every time she sees him. Last night, I opened the door to the office while I worked in the living room, Meg sat in the doorway of my bedroom, and the new cat stayed cowed in the office the entire time. So, thinking this situation would not likely change in the 2 hours of community group, I again left the office door open. I figured this would allow the cats to interact and I wouldn’t have to hear the growling and hissing, etc.

How I wish I could do that decision over.

I ran to order pizza and then to the grocery store to get veggies and dip, drinks and dessert, then back to the pizza place to pick-up the pizzas. Amazingly, I was only 10 minutes late getting to community group! I was so glad to be there, and finally stop running for a little while.

I had to leave community group early, though, to get to the office supply store before 9:00pm when it closes in order to get some supplies that I had to hand off at work before 8:00am the next morning. As I drove home, I was really looking forward to having some time with my pets and then getting to bed. I was going to take my dog for a good walk, as I’ve been skimping on his walks the past week, and I was going to love on Meg and the new cat (separately of course, since they can’t stand each other right now).

When I got inside my door, I saw my parakeets cage upside down on the floor, with seed and cage litter all over the floor. Immediate anguish gripped me. My cat never disturbs the birds, so I knew it was the new cat and that meant he doesn’t know any rules about the birds. I looked in the cage, hoping in vain that the birds would be okay. But my heart lurched further when I saw the door to the cage had come undone, and was wide open. I started to call my two parakeets, Bailey and Blythe, and whistle, trying not to cry as fear took hold little by little. Usually, they will answer me if they are somewhere and I whistle or say their names. The more places that I looked, the more afraid I was of finding them hurt or dead.

Then, I heard a little chirp. I looked up, and Blythe, my female parakeet, was sitting on top of a torch lamp. She was very scared and skittish, so I couldn’t get her to go to the cage yet. I let her sit on a bookshelf as I more frantically looked for Bailey, my male bird. Usually, if they were scared, they would try to perch in the same location, as high up as possible. I looked everywhere high that I could, and didn’t see him. As I looked I kept calling him and whistling. I could hardly see at times because of tears trying to come, but I kept reminding myself that he was probably okay, and forced them down.

The thing is, I often have nightmares of my parakeets dying, and wake up in the grip of that grief. This felt just like those nightmares - but it was really happening.

I got out my flashlight and began hunting behind or under appliances and furniture. That gave me renewed hope. He could be behind the washing machine! Not easy to get him, but he’d be alive and it would be possible to get to him after some hard labor. Then, when I didn’t see him in any of those places, I began to panic again. Blythe was hollering her, “Where are you?” call that they always answer to help locate each other. But Bailey wasn’t answering.

I went ahead and fixed the cage and put Blythe in it. She was so relieved to be back in safety. I had checked all the rooms but the office, because that was the room that hasn’t yet been unpacked, and there are so many places he could have fallen into a crevice of, and also because it didn’t make sense to me that he would have flown into the office from the living room. With trepidation, I entered the office. The the new cat meowed at me like usual, asking for attention. I ignored him, edged past my desk, calling for Bailey. Then, I saw a wing. Just a bright yellow, bodiless wing. And I ran out of the room, sick and crying. I knew I couldn’t face looking at anything more, I was already haunted by the little that I saw. I called a good friend (he and his wife had hosted the community group that night and they live near me), and crying, told him very briefly that my new cat had killed my parakeet, and could one of them come over and pick up the pieces for me?

The next 10 or so minutes, I just cried. It had been worse than any nightmare I’ve had about them. I had caused his death. I should have known better than to let the new cat free roam in the apartment when I hadn’t set any rules for him about the birds. He hadn’t interacted with them at all, so I hadn’t been able to see what he tried to do and correct him if he tried to stalk or attack them. I really thought he wouldn’t get out of his room, because of Meg’s forceful intimidation. And, being a very small cat, and the cage being pretty large, I thought there was no way he would pull it down. And if he did pull it down, I was sure the door latch would hold. But he did get out of the office, and he was large enough to knock the cage over, and the door had swung wide open, and now my favorite parakeet, who I’ve had for four years, and who has gone through six changes of address with me in that time, who loves to chatter away to me, nibbles at my glasses frame, whistles and screech to me, who likes to hide in my hair when he’s on my shoulder and groom me, who comes to the side of the cage to dash nibbles at me while I talk to him, is dead. He’d been terrified, hunted down, struggled to get free, and had been ripped to pieces by this predator that he doesn’t even know, in his own home, where he’s always been safe before. And it’s my fault.

Two of my friends from the community group arrived, and I got to tell them what happened. They were comforting and kind, and let me cry. Then they took care of cleaning up in the office so I didn’t have to see any more. I didn’t want them to have to see it either, but I knew I’d be haunted forever by what I saw. He was my friend, after all.

Tomorrow, life has to go on - even though Blythe keeps calling for Bailey, asking, “Where are you?” and ordering him, “Come here!” I don’t even have a good picture of him. Good bye, Bailey, you were a good bird. I’m sorry that I let you down.