ERNIE THE COCKATIL


"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."                    George Bernard Shaw

When we first moved to Kennewick, Washington, and I began my ministry, my husband was an IT consultant. That made it easy for us to make the move, because he could work from anywhere that had an airport.  Sunday afternoons he would fly out to wherever his current job was, and on Thursday evenings he would fly home to our house.  His being gone so much left me a little lonely, So I decided to buy a bird. I decided on a Cockatiel and named him early.  He quickly decided he would grace me by climbing on my finger. Every morning we would go around the house and open all the blinds, and I would sing, “This Little Light of Mine” to him. After a few weeks of singing to him, he learned to sing it by himself.  When I was home, the cage door was open, and he would fly out to sit on my shoulder or sit on my lap (I had my cover towels handy to catch the bird-do). He was real pal. One day, when I took him to the vet, the veterinarian said, “Oh my, he’s lost a gram of eight, what are you feeding him?”  I told him that he couldn’t eat cockatiel food because it was too big, so I fed him parakeet seed.  He said it wasn’t giving Ernie the nutrients he needed and to try mixing the two types of seed together.

I went home and mixed the seed. Ernie was okay for the next few days, but on the fourth day, when the cage door was open, I went looking for him.  I looked everywhere, and finally I went back to his cage, and there he was, lying dead on the bottom of the cage.  I think he may have choked on a seed that was too big for his throat.  He was with me for about three years and brought so much joy into my heart. I will miss him, but I am thankful for the time I did have with him.

"The power of imagination makes us infinite."                   -- John Muir

Is there an animal in your life that really nade a difference to your life?

Love and light,

Sandy


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