Good grief. I would really like to catch a break! 

Seriously though– I have been in the midst of dealing with travel hangover and the unexpected death of our dog Max while we were on our trip (you can read about that HERE). I was finally working on getting my shit together and trying really hard to get back on track–and our freaking parrot died! I was in the kitchen cleaning and walked through the living room to take something to Atti’s room and she was just lying on the ground. Dead.

She was 23 years old and suffered from seizures, so it wasn’t a huge shock–but losing her only 2 weeks after losing Max was really, really, really hard. Our family got her when I was a kid. I found this photo of us from when I was in high school….

She lived with my Dad until my parents divorced and then went to live with Grandma. Last September when Grandma had to go into the hospital for surgery and then lived with us for a couple of weeks while she recuperated, we decided that it would be best for the bird to come live with us. This is when we renamed her– from Sweetie Pie (which brought up too many bad memories for me) to Isabella Peckerhead, aka Izzie. I felt this name was much more fitting– because she was a crotchety, mean old bird when we first got her. She wouldn’t even come out of her cage because she had not been handled on a regular basis in years. She would hiss and bite if you got near her. When we brought her home, I worked for a couple of weeks and eventually got her to come out of her cage. And got her to the point where she preferred to be out of her cage and would squawk in the mornings until you would move her to the perch on top of the cage.

Poor Izzie. I had given her extra sunflower seeds that morning–they were her favorite. My only guess is that she had another seizure– she had had a few since she came to live with us and had several through the years when she lived with Grandma. Each time I found her catatonic after a seizure, I would hold her until she snapped out of it… wondering if she was going to die in my arms. I’m sad that I didn’t get to hold her through her last one. 

She had a similar send off as Max. The kids decorated a small box for her and we buried her next to Max under the big oak tree. I’m not sure if it’s because they’ve been dealing with so much loss lately or because they actually got to see and touch Izzie after she died, but the kids have handled this death much better than Max’s. So thankful for that.

Rest in peace sweet Izzie Bird.