The day had started out like any other. I spent the morning cleaning
out my aquarium, amazed at how much water had managed to evaporate in one
week. Bryan and I decided to go to the pet store to get a couple more fish.
I had found two nice fish that I wanted to buy, but the clerks were
busy attending to a few rude shoppers. Just to pass some time we went into
the back to look at the birds. We saw the most amazing thing!
As we were walking by a cage full of about twenty parakeets, a baby
keet flew over to the side of the cage that we were on. It began to follow
us! We walked around the large cage, and everywhere that we went that baby
keet followed. I had never seen anything like it! I reached my hand over to
the cage, expecting the bird to fly to the other side, terrified like all
of
the other birds were. It did not fly away! It bent its little head down
practically begging for us to scratch its head. I was afraid it was going
to
hurt itself trying to get out of its cage! Needless to say I couldn't leave
without taking it home.
We brought it home and it was so attached to us it was almost as if it
had been our bird for years. We named him Indy. I have never seen a bird
play like this little bird played (and my mother is a parakeet breeder)! We
let him outside and he just had a ball playing with all of the leaves and
picking up every little twig that was on the patio. We let him play for a
couple of hours, and that he did!
Shortly after that I went in to take a shower. All of a sudden, there
was a knock on the door. "Rheana" Bryan said, "You need to get out here
quick!" I came out side and Bryan had little Indy in the palm of his hand.
His body was limp and he couldn't hold up his own head. He was dying...
It seems that sweet little Indy did not have the bottom half of his
beak. Of course we did not notice this at the pet store. He possibly was
born without it, or was mishandled at the pet store and it broke off.
Whichever the case, the little bird had not eaten in quite some time. We
tried to hand feed it, but without his bottom beak, the food would just run
right out. I cried.
I went into the bedroom with little Indy in the palm of my hands. Bryan
and I sat on the bed next to each other in silence, petting him softly.
Neither of us said it, but we understood that Indy was going to die very
soon, and we would stay there with him the entire time.
Just then I saw something that touched my soul. Indy's head lifted
straight up and his wings completely outstretched as if he were going to
fly
straight into the sky! At that instant he was gone, and I burst into tears.
I had actually felt in my hands the moment that he had gone, and his little
body lay limp there once again.
Never before had I thought about a bird having a soul. But I believe
that I felt it. What I saw that evening was probably the most eye-opening
experience I've ever had.
I had always believed that everything in my life happens for a reason.
Be it for better or worse. I spend a good part of that evening trying to
find the meaning of all of it. It seemed pretty rotten that I had fallen in
love with this little bird, and six hours later he was lying in my hands.
Then it dawned on me. How could I be so selfish to think that everything in
my life happens to benefit me, or to make me stronger? As silly as it might
sound to some people, who is to say that the reason that it all happened
was
so Indy could be happy for the last few hours of his life? To die in the
hands of people who cared, instead of being found the next morning in the
bottom of the cage by a pet store clerk; who would see it as just another
mess to clean up.
Of course, that made me think about the way I viewed my life. Everyone
is always wondering what their purpose in life is and why things happen to
them. Think about the fact that things that happen to you aren't really
about you at all; but for the benefit of others. I believe that people have
more than one purpose in life. It could be ten it could be hundreds. Some
may be greater than others, but all of them are important, to someone or
something.
