Pluto

Our dear Pluto
{Thank you Braylen for these recent pictures of Pluto.}

Today we lost our first pet. (I'm not counting the fish from years past.) Pluto the parakeet was Kaleb's Christmas gift 5 years ago. He picked him out at the store the day after Christmas. We brought him home and 2 days later he started to sing. I admit, sometimes his singing was a bit loud. And he was really good at making messes! But now that he's gone, I miss his chatter and singing. I miss watching him play with his mirrors. I miss watching him climb all over the cage. I miss watching him splash in his water.

After school I picked up the boys and brought them home. But I didn't let them go inside the house. We sat on the front porch and I told them what happened. What time I found Pluto. What position he was in. What I did with his cage. And we remembered some of the happier times with him. Like when we brought him home--he escaped before we could put him in his cage. My dad finally caught him and then Pluto bit Dad's finger! And how we knew spring had arrived by how loud he screeched. Kaleb liked to remember Pluto climbing all around his cage using his claws and his beak.

It broke my heart to see them cry, and I cried right along with them. Especially with my sweet, sensitive Kaleb. Pluto belonged to him, and half of Kaleb's life has been spent with Pluto. He may be just a bird to everyone else, but to us he was OUR bird. And he was special.

I called him Pretty Bird, and I used a whistle pattern to "talk" to him.
Today I whistled it to him as I packed up his cage.
 

This is Kaleb with Pluto on the day we brought him home. What a happy day that was! Tonight Kaleb told me he was saying goodbye to Pluto while looking at a hole in the clouds, when suddenly a flock of birds flew through the hole. Fly free, dear Pluto! You will live in our hearts forever.

"Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God." Luke 12:6