Penelope

Of all life's lessons, loss has got to be the most painful and certainly the most difficult to wrap your head around. Loss of a loved one to be more specific. I still grieve for my loved ones whom have gone before me, even after so many years have passed for some of them. Even those whom were fortunate enough to have lived a full life, the grief is still real. For some, they left us too soon. Gone before life even started for them. For them I grieve the most. And then there are those who died while living; doing something that they loved. Your heart aches for them but we justify their tragic ending by telling our selves that they were doing what they loved when they went. That's the way I want to go; doing something that I love instead of dying of disease or after years of diminishing quality of life.
   The real trick is, how to teach your children about life and death...death as a part of life. How to respect and cherish life. How to honor the passing of someone that you loved. How to mourn them.

  I often refer to our home as a zoo. As of todays accounting, we have a full compliment of exotic parrots (7 to be exact), chickens, a dog, a cat, and fish. The thing about having a "mini-zoo", is that inevitably, animals die. Most of our parrots are rescues, or were surrendered by their previous owners for one reason or another, and some of them may live longer than we will. The chickens are much shorter lived. We adopted a few older hens over four years ago, and a few have passed since then. I would like to point out that even though I used the word "we" in the previous sentence, it should be known that I had no choice in the matter. I was the unsuspecting fool...and chicken coop builder. The idea of having chickens was schemed up by Apollo and Melanie. Those damn chickens just showed up one day and never left.

 Apollo has so much empathy and compassion for animals. I am so impressed by this 8-year-old and his love for living things. He takes care of the chickens with out being asked, retrieving eggs, filling up their water, letting us know when their food is low. He takes care of our other pets too, especially when one is sick or injured. All living things are sacred to him and I really admire that quality in him. I can't convince him to feed snails or worms to the chickens because he values their lives too.

I had hoped that the dirty little raptors would be a passing fad and before long we would be rid of them. The last thing we needed was more animals to take care of after all. My hopes were dashed when Apollo named all the hens and spent hours everyday holding and playing with them. The chickens became very tolerant of him. He even had his favorite: Penelope. She seemed to genuinely enjoy Apollo and the two of them were inseparable when in the backyard together.

For nearly 5 years, Penelope has been Apollo's sidekick and his favorite hen. She has been pulled around the yard in a wagon, ridden in an electric toy care, swung in a hammock with Apollo, rocked in a rocking chair with him, and spent hours being held by him.

Today we said goodbye to Penelope. After a couple weeks of her health deteriorating, we had to end her suffering and let her go. Apollo held her one last time and told her goodbye. He was so brave and completely understood that it was her time. We buried his little feathered friend under the persimmon tree. When I tucked Apollo in to bed tonight, we talked about our favorite memories of Penelope. The memory he shared, was sliding down the slide with her and how funny he thought it was when she pecked his eyelids on the way down.

  I asked Apollo if he was sad for Penelope. He said, "I am sad that she died, but I am happy that she is not hurting anymore. She was my friend."