I miss you Charliebird

[Mung13]

About a year and a half ago our cat was staring intently out the bedroom window. When I went to find out what he found so interesting, I saw a pigeon with a bloody back. I ran outside quick to pick him up just as the neighbors cat was closing in on him. His back was torn open pretty bad right between the wings. I could even see spots where it penetrated through the ribcage. He didn't struggle at all. My guess was he was in shock. I took him inside and rinsed the wound and put some Neosporin on it. Then I put him in a pet carrier with some water in the closet. Then I commenced to figuring out what to do next. None of the vets were any help. They said if it was a cat that got him he would need shots but he would be better off being put to sleep. So I didn't trust taking him to them. He was just a squeaker and I figured he deserved a shot at life like anyone else, besides, he kinda fell in my lap and I felt responsible for him. So I found out what he was supposed to eat and built him a pretty good coop while he watched me and listened to music. That's when he told me his name was Charlie.
Well, I was one nervous papa waiting and hoping Charlie would heal, and he did. Pretty soon he was doing that little flappy, hoppy, skippity thing they do and I thought it was the funniest, and cutest, thing I had ever seen. He really won over my heart. Now I had never intended to keep him, but once he healed winter had already set in and, him being as young as he was, I wasn't about to send him out into the cold now that I had saved his life. Then I started doing some research and I couldn't believe what I was reading. All the lives that were saved by pigeons during the World Wars (I was especially touched by Cher Ami, the things that fella went through made me cry). They were regarded as heroes and now all you hear is disease propaganda and how filthy they are. Landowners wanting them dead and gone instead of getting someone to clean up the crap every now and then. A section of the I35 bridge collapsed here in the Twin Cities due to faulty maintenance, killing several people, and they tried to blame it on pigeon poop. (You gotta look that one up) In this same city they tried loading up some feeder at this one building with some seed laced with birth control and after a year it cut their population in half. Now they want to put it all over town. Makes me think of Hitler's eugenics program. I read of pigeon shoots where they catapult them into the air to have a moving target to shoot at. I've even seen a popular video game where you are awarded with an armored helicopter if you kill all the "flying rats" in the city. Everywhere you look there's hate for them and most of the time when you ask someone why, they can't even give you a straight answer. It's almost like it's some stupid trendy thing that people blindly follow. Then I read of their lifespan, two years in the wild with most dying of starvation in their first year, but 15-20 years in captivity. All they need is a warm bed and a good meal. I wasn't about to turn my back on this little guy, so Charlie got a home.
I really loved that bird. I couldn't believe what a personality he developed. Charlie thought he was a tough guy at times picking a fight with his reflection, whom we named Tito, or a sock monkey which doubled as both a sparring partner and a love doll. (I didn't know what he was doing at first, I thought he was trying to fly away with it.) Because of the way he would hoot, we started calling him a hootiebird instead of a pigeon. I started using a voice for him and thought I was going crazy at times because it felt like he was talking through me. He would blame things on Tito or tell me he didn't want to go to bed. I guess it felt like I could understand what he said through his behavior and it translated in my head as this voice. But he would probably say I was putting words into his mouth. He loved sitting on my shoulder and preening himself and my hair when I would play guitar. Charlie would fly straight at your face when you played the ocarina or harmonica and was so fascinated with any new thing that came into the house. But he was terrified of balloons or any large thing with a face drawn on it. At one point we started noticing him regularly hiding out under this old record player we had for long periods of time. We thought he was bummed out or something and I went to see what was up. He had found an orange golfball and was sitting on it like it was an egg! It didn't look too comfortable sitting on that big thing on the hardwood floor, so Rebecca took some yarn and knit him a nest and put it and his "egg" up on this shelf by a mirror that he liked to sit at. Boy was he ever pleased. He would sit on that nest for hours, picking at it to fluff it up and weave feathers and twist ties and whatever else he could find into that nest. Being a good papa taking care of that egg.
After a while I started seeing less of the joy he brought into my life and more of the poop all over the floor. We would chase him off of things thinking he would poop on them. I wouldn't let him on my shoulder anymore. I would get frustrated and grab him and yell at him while showing him the poop, then throw him in his coop. Eventually I started opening the window and yelling at him to get out. He would look at the window then go hide in his coop and hoot. Then I would open the window and throw him out. He would fly straight back inside and make a beeline to his coop and wouldn't come out, hooting the whole time. Then one day, April 3rd, I was sitting and messing with the computer. He sat on the window ledge next to me and took a dump. I flipped out, grabbed him, yelled at him, threw him out the window and shut it. He kept trying to get back in. He started freaking out flying from window to window. He was scared of the outside and I knew it. But I just ignored him. After a long while I got up from the computer to let him back in, but he wasn't there. And instead of going to look for him right away... I cleaned the apartment. It wasn't until then that I started to get worried. What was I thinking. I went outside and combed the neighborhood, calling his name and blowing that ocarina. Nothing. I went home and waited and waited and played music out the window. Nothing. Then night fell, and so did my heart. He loved me and he was scared and wanted back in and I shut him out. If he got hurt it was all my fault. I couldn't stop crying. I didn't really sleep that night and the next day we went up and put a bunch of seed on the roof. Then we made a some lost pigeon flyers with a big color picture of him and I went around putting them up calling his name and blowing that ocarina... and crying, wailing at times.
It's been 8 days now since he's been gone. I've never cried so much or so hard in my life. I comb the area on foot or on bike everyday and it feels so hopeless. But sitting around waiting feels worse. Some people laugh at the flyers and others seem to care. One lady told me there are sharp-shinned hawks in the area and that made my heart sink. It's all my fault. I look out the window all the time. We haven't shut the window since. Every morning I look in his coop, hoping he's there. I look at the feathers and down sitting around the room, thinking of how much it bothered me, and now I don't dare clean them up. The last poop he did, the one that I threw such a tantrum over, still sits there. So many sounds seem like a hoot or a wingflutter and I look around calling "Char-lie, Charliebird, where's that hootiebird at?".
I never imagined any creature could have such an impact on me. I remember how much I loved him and he loved me. How special it was, the circumstances that brought him into my life. Then I think of how I stopped seeing these things and shunned him. But he still loved me. He would want to sit on my shoulder, just to be near me, and I would shoo him away. All those times when he would sit in his coop after I yelled at him... was he crying because he missed me? I hate myself. I've realized that, so often, I have treated the people I care about the same. Focusing too much on petty faults to see how wonderful and important they are to me. Shunning their company in order to do some frivolous thing that seems sooo important at the time. And lashing out harshly, never thinking of how, in the blink of an eye, you may lose that which you never knew you held so dear... and carry that guilt the rest of your days.
I love you and miss you Charliebird. May you always be safe and well fed. May you find a mate, have some babies, and live a long, happy life with them. And, should you choose to, may you find your way safely back home to me. You were the best friend I've ever had.
-Jim DSC02928.jpg

charlie's mug shot.jpg

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[amyable]

I don't know what to say. I read CHarlie's story and was so touched by your actions.
Then I couldn't quite believe what I went on to read.
I can tell how badly you're now feeling having lost him and I think you're brave to be so honest.
I could cry too thinking how hard it will be for Charlie to survive having lost his 'family' and food provider.
I pray he is ok and tries to get back in just one more time and you find him sitting there again, but if not that he will find his way out there in the wild and find the life you wished for him.

God bless you Charlie. xx

[Marcos Montes]

Yes, you're brave to be so honest. Guess we all have to learn our lessons sooner or later, and little tragedies may equal large tragedies in our lives... I do hope he makes it back, and you find peace in reuniting with him.

[November-X-Scourge]

I hope that Charlie comes back :'( and if he doesn't, that he is right now, happy, with a mate and babies