He was emerald green with scarlet red sides and blues of cobalt and turquoise highlighting his wings. Over time his beak turned from black to orange and yellow. His name was Hobarth, but I called him Hobie. He came to me an innocent chick, filling my head with hope for long years together. Often, I would tell him that he would be the one to go to ‘the home’ with me. He responded with his soft, "Hmmmm", and I knew that if I were there it would be okay with him. I knew that if he were there it would be much better for me.

My memory will carry to the grave the moment he reached his head around from his perch on my shoulder and placed his great orange beak directly in my face and said, "I love you", then planted a big birdy kiss right on my lips. He only did this once and I firmly believe he was cognizant of what he was doing. He was the one bird that would not stay on his perch if I left the room no matter how many times I’d return him to it. Within two minutes after being out of his sight I’d hear a thud on the floor followed by his toenails clicking down the hallway. "Come here, come here," he’d say. Of course, I came to scoop him up and snuggle him close. Whatever I was doing he was only too glad to provide supervision. It never occurred to him that I was capable of doing some not-too-difficult tasks without his watchful guidance. After all, I was just a dully colored human.

The morning I went to wake him up and found plucked blood feathers in the bottom of his cage ushered into our lives the beginning of our most intimate and bittersweet time together. Of course, I took him directly to his avian veterinarian. He was much loved among all the staff there and all took great interest in his well being. Routine labs for blood values were drawn and an X-ray taken of his body. The results showed slightly elevated liver enzymes and an enlarged spleen. He was given antibiotics and supportive therapy for a week. His weight returned and he brightened up, but still he plucked a few feathers every day. Additional blood work showed improved liver enzymes and his veterinarian thought he’d be okay. I wanted to believe this was true, but Hobie seemed to be telling me another story. His inner light had begun to dim in subtle ways that if we hadn’t been so close I wouldn’t have noticed.

Within another day or two his appetite diminished again and he refused to go back into his cage at night to sleep. He’d hold on to my hand with his foot or beak and struggle to crawl back up my arm. He had always gone to bed before and simply said, "Nite nite". Now, he wanted to stay with me. Many nights he slept on his perch beside my bed and we’d talk a little together through the watchful nights. My heart ached continuously and in varying degrees depending on his appetite and how many of his ‘jewels’ he plucked and barbed each day. Over the following month I took him back and forth to his vet for gavage feedings, medications and treatments. For a day or two he’d eat, gain weight and play, then down he would go again. His emerald green feathers lie in piles at the bottom of is cage. In places only gray down showed and in others his skin came peeking through.

Consultations with other avian specialists were done, but no one could figure out what was really wrong. Tests for lead and zinc, psittacosis, bacteria and fungus were done. I tried Aloe Detox, my vet tried antibiotics. Hobie just tried to hang on. I fed him by hand and he’d eat a little, drink a little. He was still alert and bright eyed, but something was terribly wrong. No one knew what. His laboratory work wasn’t making any clear diagnosis possible. I second guessed feeding him peanuts for aflatoxins, second guessed fasteners that might be lead or zinc, second guessed boarding him at my vet for possible psittacosis. I feared cancer. All his lab tests came back negative. Discussions of surgery and biopsies of his spleen and all the side-effects of those ensued. Plans to do this were made as a last resort after my vet returned from a brief absence for his son’s surgery.

Before any of those could be done Hobie began to vomit and time was running out. I rushed him to the other avian veterinarian in town who immediately did another X-ray, more blood work and cultures, gave him subcutaneous fluids and antibiotics. Now he could barely perch on my hand and only a very weak "Hmm" did he greet me with from his isolette. I cuddled him close, putting my nose right in his face and told him, "I love you" and kissed him right on his beak. I hope that memory stayed with him as his has me. I never saw him alive again. He made it through the night and ate a little and his second Dr. said he looked better the next morning, but at 1:30 that afternoon, he had a seizure and Hobie flew out of my life.

Hobie’s final flight plunged me into the depths of grieving. The last time I had been that far down into this dark abyss was the passing of my father 13 years before. I gained some comfort from the image that Hobie was now perched upon my father’s shoulder with my grandmother tending them both. But, I could not process his loss and come to accept it because he was so young and died of such a rare illness. The necropsy revealed sarcocystis and neither of the avian veterinarians, nor any that they consulted with over the phone even suspected this. Neither of my vets here had ever had a case of it though between them they had seen thousands of birds including wild raptors. My anger and grief grew as I asked God over and over, "Why Hobie? Why?" I took such good care of him making sure his cage was always clean, his diet fresh and healthy, his wings clipped and annual check ups and inoculations. Why was Hobie the ONE bird in all of the Midwest that had to die of this? I was pretty sure that God was singling me out for some reason.

Anger, even at God, is a normal part of the grieving process and realizing this helped. I also knew that the true meaning of crisis is little understood in our western culture. The root of the word has a two- part meaning…danger and opportunity. Well, the danger had passed and we had lost. Hobie was dead. Where was any opportunity in this? In my grief I found myself returning to the aviary and the breeder where I first met Hobie two years before. I knew his breeder, Debbie, would understand my loss and there would be a place to express my sorrow without being discounted by people who do not understand the relationship and deep love that can be had with companion parrots.

In the aviary were three of Hobie’s brothers, two chicks just getting their feathers and one that was a year old. The chicks reminded me so much of Hobie the first time I met him. I held each of them and remembered back to those first days of bonding with my dear lost friend. I inquired about the older one and Debbie told me that he had been bought and taken home when he was 3 weeks old. His owner, a young woman, hand fed him and raised him until he was about 5 or 6 months old and then didn’t want him anymore. Debbie purchased him back in a deplorable condition. He was nearly black with stress marks on his feathers and had a poor quality pellet and seed diet. He had no idea about what to do with fresh fruits or vegetables. Perhaps the worst of it all was his terror of everyone. He would not allow himself to be touched, but would thrash around his cage and try to bite anyone that came near him. Any movement around him elicited a strong startle response, followed by the flight or fright response. In time his appearance and diet improved. He learned to eat a good diet and his feathers molted out and new healthy ones replaced them. However, his behavior did not improve so dramatically.

After six months of a good diet and not being abused, he still refused to let anyone near him. Many of his siblings came and went during this six months, but no one thought of taking Jumpin’ Jake Flash home. At best, he might be a breeder bird, but no guarantee of that.

I entered the bird room to meet this Jumpy Jake and he looked so pitiful all wild eyed in his cage. I felt so sorry for him and his brother and I started to cry in front of his cage and tell him the sad story of his older sibling. Jake walked over to the door of his cage and started chewing on my hair through the bars of his cage as if to comfort me. Did I just hear a faint knock of opportunity?

I asked to have him taken out of his cage and Debbie warned me that only one other woman had been able to touch him. He put up a fierce resistance, but eventually I had him in my arms. He trembled, screamed and struggled, but did not bite. I covered him with my scarf and held him close to me, speaking his name softly. Within a few minutes I could feel his body relax. Within another few minutes I could scratch his head and rub and kiss his beak. Our first "session" lasted two hours during which he never pottied on me or tried to bite.

Over the next few weeks I returned often for my pet assisted therapy from Jake. Each time I held him under my scarf or a towel, he allowed me to touch any part of him for as long as I liked. If I took the towel off him, he’d scurry across the floor to hide behind or under anything he could find. Calmly I would offer him my hand and tell him to step up. To everyone’s amazement he did. He didn’t stay there more than two seconds, but it was obvious he knew the command. I repeated it and he stepped up again with the same results. If I toweled him quickly and held him close, he calmed quickly and we resumed our "sessions". No progress, however, was made when not toweled or in trying to get him to step up out of his cage. Numerous wing and tail feathers were lost at these times.

Regardless of the problems getting him out of his cage or holding him "exposed" without his towel, I knew, as did Debbie and everyone else who knew Jake and saw us together, that he would be going home with me. I believed that he and I needed each other and both of us would heal if I would open that door that opportunity had knocked on. I discussed this with my husband who had concerns that I was going to structure my life so that the opportunity for repeated sorrow would also come through that same door. But, he too felt that Jake was trying to make a connection with me. We made the decision to bring him home and have him "inherit" Hobie’s estate. I read all I could and talked many times to Carolyn Swicegood from the Land of Vos, as well as my avian vet about Jake’s problems. Everyone felt that he had made such good progress in just a few weeks on my visits that more than likely he would recover if given time.

Saturday morning was warm and sunny, the kind of spring morning that brings hope and renewal all on its own. Jake met us with freshly cut wings and nails and a bath. He looked just beautiful and I knew I’d made the right decision. What followed next none of us was prepared for. Jake had NEVER let a man touch him so we all stood with our mouths agape when my husband put his hand out to Jake. I couldn’t tell him to stop for I was afraid Jake would be further inclined to fear bite. In something like those slow motion shots shown in the movies where the horror of the moment is fully realized we all watched as Jake never hesitated to step up onto my husband’s hand…and he stayed there! From there he walked right out the front door of the aviary and into the car, not jumping once when either door slammed shut. Everyone inside the store looked out the windows to see when Jake would freak. He never did.

He spent his first day in his new home sitting on his perch in the sun of our bay window. He stepped up and down several times for both my husband and me from his T-stand or the perch in his cage. He sat on my shoulder grinding his beak as I e-mailed Carolyn about the events of his first day at home. He slept in my lap as I watched a movie on television that evening. His second day at home only had one episode of jitters which he quickly recovered from.

On the way back upstairs after finally putting him to bed that first night, I passed the cuckoo clock I had brought home from Germany two years ago. It had stopped running and had been silent for nearly a year even though nothing had been found wrong with it. I gave the pendulum a gentle push just to tell the little cuckoo that time, love and hope hadn’t stopped even if we both thought it had. The long-silent bird instantly popped out of his door and cuckooed in agreement eight times. He has reiterated this opinion every thirty minutes since that time. The Brothers Green seemed to have known all along what the cuckoo and I had forgotten.