'BERYL AND THE BUDGIE BIRD'

Story ID:	2045
Written by:	Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe
Organization:	Retired RN/Freelance Writer and Photographer
Story type:	Family Memories
Writers Conference:	$500 2007 Family Memories Writing Project
Location:	Clarenville Newfoundland and Labrador Canada
Year:	1966
Person:	My sister Beryl

'Beryl and the Budgie Bird’

I entered our house to find Mother staring into the bird cage. My sister Beryl had a budgie bird named ‘Pete’, and this bird was her treasure. Mother was standing in the ‘Mother Pose’, which is when the hands are on the hips. That is never a good sign. She was doing quite an inspection of the ‘Pete’s’ cage.

She beckoned to me and said "Come and look, and tell me what you think!"

I dropped everything and hastened to see why my mother was so distraught. After a short visual inspection I opened the cage door and touched the pretty little Budgie Bird lying at the bottom of the small cage. Yes, sure enough, he felt just like one of the little bird ornaments on the Christmas tree.‘Pete’ had met his demise.

"Well, what DO you think?" asked Mother.

"He’s dead," I replied.

"No, he can’t be, not now," Mother moaned.

"Well, my dear mother, this bird is no more, he has ceased to be, he has shed his mortal coil, he is, in fact, quite dead," I managed to restrain my laughter, but I was reminded of the famous ‘Monty Python’ ‘Parrot Skit’ of John Cleese.

I looked up and smiled, WRONG MOVE ON MY PART! Mother was not happy. What were we going to do? This tizzy was so unlike Mother, who had always accepted the life and death of our pets, cried with us and explained that it was Okay to cry. She, like us, loved the animals, and she would hurt like us if we lost a pet.

My mother tolerated every kind of pet we brought home, stayed up all night with sick mommy cats and kittens, and believe it or not had suffered the unbelievable experience of having a cat go for the goldfish, the dog go after the cat, the previous budgie to this one, ‘Jacko’, got out of his cage and in all the fuss the fish went under a radiator and the bird had a heart attack and fell into her scrub bucket.

It didn’t unnerve her whatsoever. The heart attack was the kid’s theory, but the bird did fall from the ceiling into her bucket. Yes, she had seen it all with five offspring and here she was crumbling over ‘Pete’,the deceased budgie bird.

Finally she found enough breath to tell me what the major problem was, and explained it in detail. She ended by saying, "You remember when ‘Hortoise’ the Tortoise fell off the coffee table and died, well that was Beryl’s pet too, and she was in the middle of exams. It caused her to not do well in her exams. Her average went down over that. And she is in the middle of exams again now, so she cannot know this happened!"

Enough said. Beryl was my sister, fourth in the family of five, and she was beautiful and smart, kind and soft-hearted, and was protected quite a bit as she had been just a three-pound bundle at the time of her birth in a little hospital in Southern Newfoundland. She was barely alive and was baptized in the delivery room and given Christian names of the nurses who were there, Barbara and Beryl. Our Barbara Beryl survived, and we all protected her as she indeed was a miracle of life.

Mother and I knew she would agonize over ‘Pete’, and she would possibly mess up her exams. To make a mess of our exams was not acceptable to our parents. So something had to be done quickly. I was due at work as a Registered Nurse in about two hours so we promptly set to work to fix the situation.

We had to dispose of the body of ‘Pete’, the cage, food, and anything else around that could ever prove he existed. That was my brilliant scheme! I had to get to work, the school bus was on it’s way and Beryl would soon be home, so we had no time to squander. So in less than an hour every shred of evidence of the existence of the demised little ‘Pete’ was gone.

Absolutely everything was taken care of, even furniture was rearranged to hide where the cage had been. I went to work, and Mother prayed! The daily routine of our lives continued on and Beryl never mentioned ‘Pete’.

Great plan, and everything was going well until a week later when Beryl finished her exams. But one could never, and still should never, underestimate this sister of mine. She was born small, but lives big. Her big smile, her happy-go-lucky nature, quick wit, and ability to be forgiven for the most awful clumsy accidents she would have, created family stories that live on to this day. Beryl has a love of life that brings out the best in all those whose lives she touches, which now makes her such a wonderful Northern Nurse, as she dedicates herself to her work in a difficult community, and is loved by all because of her wonderful approach to life.

To enlighten you on how Beryl can make lemonade from lemons I will tell you a story that proves that she always escapes wrath.

One year on a summer vacation to my mother’s home on the Labrador coast Beryl was invited to go trout fishing. Of course all the fishing rods were lying crossways in the van, which was okay until Miss Beryl decided to stand up, the van rounded a turn and down she went, breaking off every single fishing rod!!

She went into an outburst of uncontrollable laughter and was very quickly forgiven for breaking the fishing rods. She, of all of us, was the only one who could do such a thing and be free of at least a sermon! Such was the way her life went. Always forgiving, and always forgiven! We would just stare in wonder at how she could do it.

For some reason, she did not notice the missing ‘Pete’ or the cage. The bicycles were getting out of winter storage and she was all caught up in riding her bicycle at that time.

Mother and I stayed silent!

Then it happened! I noticed Beryl standing in the area where the cage had been hanging, obviously deep in thought. We distracted her, but soon she was back in the same spot.

"There’s something missing here," she announced. Nobody spoke. We all watched with nervous anticipation, fearing Beryl’s reaction now that she knew about her treasured pet.

"Didn’t I have a bird here?" she asked.

No answers were forthcoming.

"Yes, I did. I had a bird. His name was Pete.Where is he?", she asked loudly.

"The cage and stuff are upstairs," I informed her.

"Why would you put him upstairs?”she yelled. Yelling was one of Beryl’s strong points. She could really yell, and still can!

By now, Mother was a wreck, so I had to try to settle things.

"I told you we put the cage upstairs. The bird is not in it, and besides it took you long enough to miss it," I yelled back!

"Where’s Pete? Where’s my bird? Mooooooooooommmmmmmmm!" , she bellowed.

"Pete is dead, he is no more, he is gone, and it took you two weeks to miss him, so give it up," I informed her loudly, chiefly because that is how sisters are sometimes.

"You mean to tell me he died two weeks ago? That’s a riot!", she laughed.

Then she started to laugh harder, and kept laughing. After ten minutes of this we all found the scene hilarious, and were all laughing with her.

Soon Beryl left to tell her friends about her dead pet,she passed her exams,and continued her education, became a nurse and had many more pets along the way. She also provided another story for our list of crazy family antics.

As for ‘Pete’, hopefully he is in ‘Birdville’, and free of a cage.

A tiny budgie bird gave us a great family memory that lasts to this day.

Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe