White-eyed Conure (photo by Dario Sanchez)
Bilbo
was a White-eyed Conure that I meant to rescue from a California pet store when
I turned 19. He was there, wild and
green, frantically pacing his cage as dozens of pairs of eyes ogled his beauty
through cage wire and plate glass. I
don’t know how he came to be there and in those days I barely wondered. So fierce was his incomprehensibility of his
captivity and indeed, his captors, I later suspected that he had been an adult
bird in the wild when he had been cruelly removed from home and flock in South
America.
My
boyfriend at the time saw my eyes light up with desire for this bird. He bought Bilbo for my birthday. Bilbo and I never became friends. He was too wild for that and perhaps I was
too, spending much of my time at college and work, and when free time presented
itself, I did not spend it at home with this bright beauty. Despite his neglect he survived until I
graduated from the University of California at Davis with a degree in Avian
Sciences – birds. I had a degree in
birds, but not as yet much of a degree of understanding birds. Bilbo had been with me for three years at
that time. I left him in the care of the
owners of a struggling bird farm while I toured around the country with a man who would become my first husband. We
visited 48 states and 2 countries in those 2.5 months – and I don’t think I
often thought of Bilbo. When I returned
to Davis I was told that Bilbo had been kept in a shed and that one day he had
been discovered dead after the owners had been gone for a weekend. He had died alone, cause unknown, holy
purpose of a life well lived apparently never accomplished. Except perhaps he did leave this world with
one poignant and painful point – do not forsake a bird, for the loss shall
dwell within you forever.
Have you ever
had to juggle multiple claims on your time, and felt remiss that you have not
fully been present in each activity?
What do you desire, which attaining might harm other beings?
