One year after the adoption, I had a nice talk with Andrea. Jo Jo (nee Jo) is doing well. She is saying goodbye, goodnight, and apple. Who knew that after 26 years she would improve her vocabulary? Clear evidence she is in a better environment. She eats well, lots of fruit, and gets along well with the 6 other birds in Andrea’s flock.
I feel a little bit like a liar, a dysfunctional parent, Ike Turner, acting like I care about Jo now. I miss her a little, sometimes I recall the way she smelled, the heat of her feathers, the grip of her talons so much like Alana’s tinyHand. Sometimes G misses her too, asks where she is and when we can see her again. Time has dulled the bad memories of Jo for her, like it has for me. I’ve forgotten the filth, the screaming, the tension she caused. However bad it was, it would be far far worse now with Alana. The stress would be unbearable, surely complicated by the fact that we have Alana’s crib and G’s bed in our bedroom. Jo would have been relegated to the spare bedroom, which she would have filthified and destroyed while screaming and sulking non-stop, further fueling the downward spiral between us.
Life is better for us all now, and acceptance is easier, but its something with which I am still struggling. Life is full of so much loss it is numbing, but how often do you lose someone with whom you shared 26 years? It makes no sense to still be sad when every measurable criteria shows we are all better off. Guilt and regret are powerful forces, maybe more powerful than relief and joy. But I am filled with those too, and in looking over some pictures of Jo I felt for the first time in months a lot of love and happiness more strongly than the sense of failure. I want the last post I will likely make about Jo to be positive, but I can not without caveat say that this is. The best I can say is that I saw this picture tonight and it made me smile.
Other posts about Jo:
- June 9, 2008: The Parrot Who Pwnd Me
- July 2, 2008: Screening
- July 2, 2008: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
- July3, 2008: Saying Goodbye to Jo
- July 18, 2008: Missing Jo
- October 23, 2008: Gone Baby Gone
This was bittersweet! So was “The Parrot Who Pwnd Me.” Since I remember Jo from the time you brought home a scared little baby parrot who had to be fed farina from a spoon, I feel I’m entitled to be somewhat maudlin too. And that’s even though I still have the scar from when she bit me hard enough to draw blood! But I agree that in later years she became raucous and barely controllable, screaming and chasing the other critters around. She looks happy and healthy and for that you must thank Andrea and family – they did wonders with her by retraining and adding to her vocabulary. So, it’s time to say “thank you, and goodbye.”
DAD