Sunshine

Sunshine truly lived up to her name. During her brief life she was my baby, my joy, the light of my life. I am writing this as a memorial to her companionship, and for all the joy and laughter she brought to me.

Having a bird was the last thing I thought I'd be doing before Thanna came to visit in June, 1994. She was all excited about their new baby parakeets, Elijah and Sweetie Pie, and before I knew it I was looking for a bird. Sandy and (especially) her husband Tom convinced me that the only kind I wanted was something called a Quaker Parakeet. But a GREEN bird? How unexciting! Then, before I could turn around, on June 25 Thanna, Danel, Sandy and I were on our way to Holt, MO, to look at little green birds.

I was immediately drawn to the smallest Quaker of the bunch. Its little tail feathers were tattered and chewed looking and had stress marks at the tips, but it seemed we were meant to be together. So I got a quick lesson in hand feeding a baby bird, handed over my money, and home we went with a little GREEN bird, complete with some hand feeding formula, a couple of syringes to feed it with, and a lot of, "What have I gotten myself into?"

We didn't have a cage so she lived in a small carrier until the next day. After taking Thanna to the airport, Danel and I made a flying trip to Lee's Summit to try and buy a cage before the store closed. We barely made it, and found just what we wanted. Then Danel went home and I was all alone with my new feathered friend, more than a little apprehensive.

It was really hard picking out a name. We tried several but nothing seemed just right. Finally, I thought of "Sunshine" and it seemed perfect. We called her Sunny most of the time.

Somehow, in spite of my ignorance, Sunny grew; she shed the ugly tail feathers and became absolutely beautiful!

On Labor Day, when she was 16 weeks old, she said her first words: "Want some?" Was I excited!! And that was just the beginning. The next week she said, "Nite, nite", and "Bye-bye" and the next week she added, "I love you", "Hi, Thanna", "Talk to Thanna", "Gotta go to work", "See you tonight", "What?", "Whatcha doing?", "Good", "Peek-a-Boo", "Thank You", and "Come Here!" The next week: "Keekers!" (nickname for the dog), and "Sunshine". We were really on a roll! She learned to say almost everything I said to her, but hardly anything I tried to teach her -- such as singing. It was probably just as well she didn't imitate my singing voice.

We had a special whistle/call for when I was out of her sight. Sometimes she'd start to do the normal chirp, then remember and give the sweet little call we had. She whistled for Quiara, wolf-whistled, and we had a game of "can you do this?" One of us would whistle a couple or more notes and the other would try to copy it. Sometimes I started the game, and sometimes she would.

I learned that when she got noisy I could make some quiet "cluck, cluck" sounds and she'd do it, too. Sometimes I was too noisy for her and she'd say, "cluck, cluck". When Quiara would bark, Sunny would say, "Quiara, QUIET!"

When the girls called home I'd tell Sunny to tell them to come and see us and she'd get up to the phone and say, "Come here". After a while when I wanted her to do it she would just say "Hurry". If I said "Tell them to hurry," she'd say "Quick!"

She learned the Up and Down commands, but didn't always cooperate. She'd say "Up" and put a little foot up, then just back away from my hand. This was usually when I was in a hurry to leave. When she would finally come to me and I was sitting her on her perch saying "Down", she'd say, "Up", and get right back on my hand. At night, after she was in bed, I'd hear her repeating our conversation. (sweetly) "Come here, come on now, hurry," [and not so sweetly] "Sunny, come here!" [sweetly again] "Come on now, hurry. Mama go to work."

I fed her weaning food every night to make sure she was getting enough to eat (she was never a very good eater) and to have a special time together. She'd put her little face up close to mine and say, "Want some?" or "Want some more?" and make kissing sounds. When I emptied the dish and rinsed it, she'd say, "All gone."

When I'd put a new food in her dish she would look in and say, "What's that?" Then she'd stick her beak in and say, "It's good," take a little taste and say, "Yummy, yummy, yummy!" And then, more often than not she wouldn't eat it after all.

She seemed to use her vocabulary most appropriately. If I'd say something like, "Sunny, you scared me," she'd answer with "I'm sorry." If she slipped while climbing around on her cage, which she did quite often, she'd say, "careful, be careful." Since she loved to hear me yell when she pulled my hair or bit me (while she said "Ouch" or "Stop It" or "Don't!") I started saying "Be careful." She did it also: she'd start to nip my hand and stop and say, "Be careful." Sometimes it was "Don't bite," or "Don't bite Mama."

During the 1995 baseball season she started saying "Go Royals!" Then when football season came along it was "Go Chiefs!" She wasn't picky, she usually said the opposite of what I said. We had some pretty heated arguments over who we were yelling for. One day she finally said, "Quiara, go ROYALS."

When I came home from work and talked to her and then said, "Mama's going to change clothes", she got it all confused. At first she'd say, "Go Chiefs". So I started enunciating the two real strongly. After that she'd say "Go ChieFs" and "Go chanGe. Mama go change clothes".

Sunny loved her bath. She would say, "Wanta take a bath? Take a bath" a few times and then I'd hear "I wanta take a bath!" I knew she was serious then. One day she was saying this and I kept putting her off. Pretty soon she said, "I want some." I said, "What?" Sunny: "I want some." Me: "What do you want?" Sunny: "I want to take a bath!" Of course we did.

When Quiara went outside she'd say, "Quiara, hurry" and whistle for her. She also made the sound of the sliding door opening.

To get my attention she'd say, "Peek A Boo" or "I love you." It always worked! If I walked through the room or was in the kitchen and waked by the doorway so she could see me she'd say, "Hi!"

She seemed to listen to the TV. Is she heard Spanish music she tried to sing along, off key. There was one commercial that she really did not like. A man had earphones on and his wife was trying to talk to him. They made her voice go faster and faster, then Sunny would say, "No, no, no, no, no! Quiet!"

The last few weeks it seemed she was finally trying to sing a song. But it didn't sound like anything I could recognize -- more like a donkey bray, something else, then, "let's go, let's go." Now it occurs to me she was probably saying, "TouchDOWN, touchDOWN, come on, come one, Let's Go! Let's Go!" (I was a football fan bigtime that year!)

I really wish I had recorded all the things she said. It's impossible to convey her special way of saying them -- she put just the right inflection to suit the situation.

One day she was making really strange sounds that I finally recognized as an imitation of my cough. she got very good at it and loved to do it. She'd cough and cough and then say, pitifully, "I'm okay." OK was another word she used a lot (making me aware that I used it a lot!)

She got pumpkin seeds at night for a bedtime snack; after she finished one she'd ask for another one with "OK". She'd watch me do something and when she saw I was finished she'd say, "OK".

One morning I was drying my hair and heard her frightened "SQUAWK, SQUAWK!" and then "NO, no, no, no, no!" I ran in to see her running back and forth at the back of the cage, looking down at the floor. Finally she climbed up on her highest perch and said, "I'm okay". Pretty soon she started it again, and this time when I got there she said, "What's that?" I will never know for sure but I later caught a mouse and think that may be what she saw.

Every morning when I uncovered her cage she'd say, "Good Morning!" At night when I was putting away her toys to clean the cage grate she'd come over and put her head in my hand, saying, "Mama's sweet, sweet baby girl. Mama's sweetheart. I love you." Then when she'd had her pumpkin seeds and I covered the cage she said, "Nite, nite; sweet dreams. I love you." Just a couple of nights before she passes away I was turning out the lights and said, "We're going to bed." She said, (like --- you must be kidding), "You wanta take a bath?" I said, "No, we're going to bed," and she said, "Ok, nite, nite." About that same time I gave her a new toy, a koala bear hanging on a pole. When I first showed it to her she said, "Pretty." After I hung it in her cage I heard her talking and looked. There she was, holding the bear, making kissing sounds and saying, "Mama's sweet baby girl. I love you. I love you Mama's sweetheart." It was so cute!

Sunny was just a little fluff of feathers and didn't get to spend very long with me, but she left a big empty spot and will always have a special place in my heart. I'm so thankful for all the good memories of fun times we had. "Nite, nite, Sweetheart. Mama will always love and remember you."

She truly was my special "Sunshine."

Barbara Vickerman