We Lost Lucky

Lucky Bird is gone. It's been an emotional and sad couple of days. Pray for Blaine as he struggles through this. He is grieving hard!

He and Joey spent Saturday and part of Sunday at the lake with Papa.

Early Sunday afternoon, Kylee was checking Lucky's water. She said she thought something was wrong with him. I went over there and thought he was sleeping. She's always such a drama queen about something being wrong with our animals, so honestly, I ignored her.

When the boys got home, of course, Blaine was talking to him. I'm kind of sketchy about what happened next because I wasn't in the room. The next thing I'm sure about is Joey had Lucky out on his finger, and he puked. I knew something was wrong. Birds don't puke, do they?

The more we watched him, the more we knew something was really wrong. Blaine was bawling, so worried, so the boys took him to the ER. The doctor said it was really bad, a respiratory problem, and he probably wouldn't make it. They gave him oxygen, and said they could give him some antibiotics, if we wanted to pay for them, but he could die at any minute.

How do you tell your eight-year old boy who is being so brave trying to hold it together, chin quivering, silent tears that his bird that he rescued and nurse back to health is going to die, and so you are not going to pay $100 for antibiotics that aren't going to work? You don't. You pay the $100, get the antibiotics, pray really really really hard for the best, and take the very sick bird and very sad boy home.

At home, we put Lucky in his cage and put a blanket over his cage. Remember, that's what we did when we found him? And that worked. Blaine checked on him every five seconds minutes until I made him get in the bathtub. While he was in the bathtub, we lost Lucky. Joey and Kylee knew it. Kylee cried. We decided to wait until he was out of the bathtub to tell him.

And he lost it. Cried. Sobbed. Broke his mama's and his sister's hearts. He choked out how much he loved Lucky, how much he already missed him, and how he would have given up anything to save him. He decided we had to bury him...right now. So he got him out of his cage.

He said he just couldn't bare to be there while his Daddy buried him. I told him just to come upstairs and lay in bed with me. He wanted me to carry him, but my knees just can't take carrying him up the stairs. So Kylee offered to do it. She was so worried about him! They had been fighting all.day.long, but when he was at his lowest, he wanted her. And when he wanted her, she was there.

He cried himself to sleep while I rubbed his back. When he got up Monday morning, his eyes were as swollen as a teenage girl's whose boyfriend broke up with her. He seems better last night and today. He still misses his friend, but he's shaken the hardest, most visible part of the grief.

Thanks, Lucky Bird, for loving him as much as he loved you!

RIP