B.B. Goes Over The Rainbow Bridge

B.B. stands for Beautiful Bird. His original name, given by Shirin, was Peetri, but Saeed never could attach to that name and kept calling him, "my beautiful bird." Eventually that name stuck. We actually had two parakeets but B.B.'s partner died early on. He made the best of it and seemed very happy in his cage singing, talking to the birdies in his mirrors, and taunting the cats to come closer only to scoot away at the last minute. In fact he used to imitate Teddie's meow so well I couldn't always tell who it was, and more than once turned around to pet Teddie only to find out it was B.B.

It's hard to understand how two adult humans could feel so saddened, so affected by B.B.'s death. Some would surely say he was "just a parakeet." But he was so much more, so much more. When you're an animal lover, a true animal lover, you form an intimate relationship with your pet. Saeed worried about his comfort all the time, to the point that he made me uncomfortable so B.B. wouldn't be too hot, too cold, or in the artificial light too late at night.

From what I know about parakeets, B.B. lived a good long life. It wasn't long enough for us, but he gave life his best and then he just wore out. We'll miss him. Saeed buried him right out in front of our kitchen window so we can look out and see him easily.

In my opinion, our culture tries to make death as clean and sterile as possible. We try to get past it as quickly as possible. If we look at some of the other cultures who express their sorrow much more openly it makes us uncomfortable. I think "cleaning it up" does a disservice to the memory of the one who has died.

We'll leave the cage out for a while. The house sounds very silent. We'll never get more birds. First of all you can never replace the one you loved, but more importantly we decided that caging a beautiful flying creature who really should have been born and allowed to stay in the jungle is not in keeping with our beliefs about the rights of the animals on our earth. Animals were not created for our entertainment. Animals exist for their own purposes and if we find them entertaining we should enjoy them in their own realms. Goodbye B.B. .... we'll miss you.