[In loving memory of my sweet bird, Trendle]

This is going to be hard, so.. *deep breathe* Here we go....a memorial post with some of my favorite pictures and stories...

This last week, (the day after my birthday to be exact,) I lost my precious cockatiel to some kind of sickness whom I've had since I was 7 years old. That's a total of 15 years of having her with me!

This has honestly been the hardest thing I've ever gone through...I've never lost something I'd been so attached to before-- no words can express how upset I was, (and still am...)Even now I'm trying not to cry while I type this, but I thought maybe telling her story would help me.

*tears*

Some of you may not understand why I loved her so much, or you may think I'm crazy because she's "just a bird, so get over it!!" But she wasn't just any old bird....
I'm not technically an official mommy yet though, so Trendle, since I was 7, had always been "my baby."
I can't express in words the attachment I had to her, and over the years she bonded with me and would follow me around like a baby too.

When I walked into the pet shop to pick out a cockatiel, the lady took me to an incubator with brand new baby cockatiels, and there I picked out "Trendle" who got her name from a christian kid's tv show I used to watch which had a puppet parrot named exactly that.

The lady told me I could come back and get her in a few weeks when she was old enough to eat seed and be out of the incubator...and that wait killed me!
I was soooo excited the day we got to bring her home.
One of the first things I learned to do was "scratch" her head. She would put her head under my hand any time I would cup it over hers, and I finally figured out she liked to be scratched....and she would sit there and let you scratch her head all day if you had the time...

Over the years Trendle bonded with me, and soon became my "room alarm". Since she was always in my room, she would squawk her head off if anyone by myself walked in there. I never had to worry about siblings trying to sneak in there! ;)

When I was still little and was always grounded, Trendle was always there with me, keeping me company when I could go nowhere else or do anything else...she was a great friend :)

When Ben and I moved into our apartment, she'd start squawking the second she saw me outside our window while I was unlocking the door to get in....that's one thing I really miss...her welcome home chirps :'(

Towards the end, when she got older, she developed some arthritis in her hips...so she looved to sit on my laptop because it always got warm while I worked on it...I have many examples of this:

She would "help" me do my homework by showing me how to sleep instead of work...

Trendle had a lot of favorites foods, all of them were actually good for birds to eat too, like cooked pasta, oats, some veggies, but ESPECIALLY cooked peas...she would devour those without stopping to breathe....she liked bread and crackers of course, and she also liked popcorn......

She'd eat this stuff and make a HUGE mess and it was hilarious because it would always stick to her beak....lol.

She was always with me when I worked on homework or picture editing...and occasionally I'd stop and take some funny pictures while sitting there....

Because of the arthritis she'd sleep funny....like, she'd start to lean forward and then almost fall forward, but then sit up straight again, and then start drifiting forward, etc etc. Kinda like a kid falling asleep in their food, lol. She would do this while sitting on my shoulder even:

The hardest part of her getting older was that she started to lose some "sense" or something....her wings have always been clipped, she's never been able to fly. But for some reason, if she was sitting on the table or counter, she'd get the notion that she could and would jump off trying to get to me or something else...This happened many times, but this last time she did it, she majorly hurt herself...

She somehow damaged her neck to the point where I couldn't touch it, and for the next few days it got worse. The morning of a wedding I was supposed to go shoot at noon I decided to run her to the vet.
I honestly don't know if this was a mistake or not....despite trendle's squawks of pain, the vet pushed and prodded and tried to feel for other broken things or whatever...to the point that trendle coughed up some slimy liquid. This vet lady barely paused to let T. catch her breathe and I was trying not to freak out myself....

At the end of the appt. the most the vet could do was send me home with a tube to force feed her because she wasn't eating or barely drinking and was afraid there was some damage to her crop. (The organ that stores and processes a bird's food.)

I went home worried to death, because trendle was sleeping all hunched over and looked like she was still in a lot of pain...

At this point I had to rush to get ready to leave for the wedding, Ben was home then so I asked him to keep his eye on her. You're supposed to keep sick birds warm, so I had a heating pad in her cage, which she had been sitting on for the last few days of being hurt. This time I kissed her goodbye and laid her in her cage to rest. I had no time to feed her then, and she was my priority to feed once home from the wedding that night.

The wedding went well, despite my worries, and I stopped by Ben's mom's house to pick him up from working on our car.

Something in my heart on the car ride home told me to expect the worse when I got home but pushed it away, telling myself I had time and still had to at least try and feed her and get some nourishment in her.

*don't read past this if you have a weak heart or vivid imagination...*





However, when I walked into our room I saw her little body pressed against the side of her cage as though she had been trying to get out or was squawking for help. I screamed as I yelled her name and touched her and realized she was already gone. She had choked on that slimy stuff the vet had not warned me about at all.......*frustration!*

I don't think I have cried harder or for so long in my life.....
*tears*
....
I miss her sooooooo much and had all the hope in the world that I would fix her and help her get better....but it was too late. What kills me is that I keep telling myself I could have saved her by clearing her airways if I had been there, or if Ben had even been home that night, but we weren't.

I had always known the day of her passing on would come eventually, but I always thought it would be a "peaceful" one...maybe in her sleep or something, but this kind of death was even harder for me to swallow. I just wanted to be there to hold her or keep her warm if she was in pain, I hadn't wanted for her to die completely alone.

I know it's God's will that I wasn't at home to watch her suffer and die, but I keep asking why she had to die so painfully.... it's hard for me to understand, and I will probably never fully understand, but I am at least a little comforted that she's not in pain now, as I know she probably was for those last days.


We buried my sweet bird the next day at my parent's house under the tree she would sit in during the spring days when I lived at home. Since her wings were clipped she would go outside with me to enjoy the nice weather and get some fresh air.

 *one of her favorite places to sit, besides my shoulder; she knew that
if she gave me a kiss, I'd scratch her neck...*


These last few days have been so painful, and I'm honestly fighting a little depression, but God is still good, and I have a loving husband and a beautiful baby on the way (who I will get to see the first time in one week from tomorrow!)

I'm also thankful for my mom, and wonderful friends who've lent hugs, kind words, cards, and let me come over and hang out just to get out of my house and to get my mind off things.
I know this healing will take awhile, but I'm praying that soon the arrival of a new baby will surpass any emotional distraught left from this experience, I have to be strong for him or her!


I hope this didn't disturb any of you...I just had to write whats been filling my mind for the last few days...

To end all these tears I'll leave you with a favorite video of her:

Love and hugs,
Leah