I don’t have a very good track record with birds.

I had a pet cockatiel when I was a kid, and her name was Bella. I was obsessed with birds and did a bunch of research in the hopes of one day obtaining a bird for myself. Like the true nerd that I am, I also begged my parents to take me to the lorikeet habitat at the zoo as often as possible. The zoo was not located close to our house, and yet my mom graciously drove me to and fro as often as (if I remember correctly) two times a week. Bless her heart. Sometimes my dad would get roped into these lorikeet adventures as well on the weekends, and like the picture below shows, he’d join me in feeding them. Looking back, I truly had no idea why I liked birds so much. I grew up with a greyhound named Goose that I’ve written about before in the poem titled—you guessed it—Goose. We then added two Maltese pups into the mix, and shortly after that, Bella the cockatiel. I’ve always been a fan of animals and even wanted to be a veterinarian for a time, but after helping out at a dog grooming business for a few weeks, that quickly changed.

I will start this paragraph by saying that I saw the Twilight movies for the first time in college, so I absolutely did not name Bella after a certain Ms. Swan. It was when we were on the drive back from a bird fair—I know, I keep sounding like a cooler kid the more I write—that my dad suggested naming the little 6-month old cockatiel I just got: Bella. Her bright eyes peeked up at me from inside the unsealed cardboard box that was sitting in my lap, and I thought that “Bella” fit. She was a “white-faced cinnamon pearl” cockatiel, which basically means she was ashy gray with white spots—she was beautiful. Her eyes would droop and she’d start falling into your hand if you messaged her tiny neck surrounded by her dense feathers, and she was trained to step onto your finger if you laid it flat in front of her feet and said, “Step up!” My parents drove me 45 minutes each way to that dang bird fair, which was essentially a massive warehouse with a bunch of booths of people selling birds and people walking around looking to buy said birds. It was a weird time, my elementary school years.

I tried to train Bella to poop on cue, but that didn’t work, nor did I have the patience for any sort of consistency needed to train a bird to do something like that. So, I’d simply put a paper towel over my shoulder and place her on top, like I was a homeschooled pirate, and walk around my house. Speaking of poop (a segue I never thought I’d use), after all of those hours spent at the lorikeet habitat, not once did those brightly-colored birds poop on me. Yet, after making a quick shortcut through their habitat to get to another section of the zoo on my 12th birthday, one pooped directly on my head. I’ll always remember angrily washing bird poop out of my hair in the zoo bathroom on my birthday. That was the last day I visited the lorikeet habitat.

Less than a year later, my dad got sick and passed away 4 months after his diagnosis. I guess my brain that refused to grieve for a long time didn’t want to put two and two together, so I simply thought that I didn’t want to spend time with Bella as much anymore. I’d rather cuddle with my fluffy dogs instead. Bella would chirp and chirp throughout the day, essentially begging someone to play with her, but I had no desire to do so. My mom and I came to the realization that it would be best if she went to be with another family. So, as any kid does, I wrote an ad for my homeschool co-op newspaper about a cockatiel I was selling. Another girl who attended that co-op saw my ad took Bella off my hands, and our house then became a lot quieter.

Years later, I attended a local community college to get some gen eds out of the way. After I was finished with classes one day during my freshman year, I had this sudden boost of confidence come out of nowhere. I thought to myself, “Hey, you’re in college now. You need to keep your head high and walk with confidence!” I walked out one of the sets of double doors, raised my head, and looked at those around me instead of looking down and focusing on the next step my feet would be taking. Step step step step—I was feeling great! I took a few more steps, and then I felt and heard the crunch of what I prayed was just a lone bag of Lays chips that had separated itself from someone’s backpack and somehow miraculously slid under my foot. I took a few more steps forward, and as I looked back to see what I had stepped on, I saw a bloody mound of a dead bird with bones sticking out every which way and thick, bloody shoe prints that led to where I was now standing. What started as just a random boost of self-confidence had turned into me stumbling away, hunched over, a hand over my mouth, gagging as the shoe prints got less and less bloody as I walked to my car to head home.

Don’t worry—I have since thrown away my “bird shoes,” as I liked to call them. Thankfully, now that I’m in my 20s, I haven’t been pooped on by any birds or stepped on any birds, dead or alive. So, maybe my track record is improving in that department. Just in case, I think I’ll stick to dogs as pets from now on. I’m grateful that my parents encouraged my love of animals and took time out of their weeks to let me visit the lorikeets at the zoo or take me to the library to check out dog encyclopedias—that’s a story for another day. Yesterday was Father’s Day, and it had me thinking about how despite working full-time at a corporate job, my dad made time for all of us kids. Saturday mornings eating cinnamon-sugar toast, drinking a glass of milk before bedtime and watching an episode of Chuck, sitting in the maple tree out front and playing the “car” game, or spending a few hours at the lorikeet habitat at the zoo. He’d ask me questions about my day, despite the fact that I was a homeschooled elementary school kid, and the most exciting thing that could happen to me in a day would be how Arthur was on twice in one day or I found a salamander in the pool filter.

Birds remind me of lorikeets who love to poop on heads, and they remind me of that one time in community college that I almost threw up in the common area. But they also remind me of Bella, and in turn, my dad and how much he cared.

Reagan Fleming