This is adapted from 2011: We never had the talk. You know, the “What we would do if he died” discussion about our bird. It might have helped. So here it is, a few days after our cockatiel Dini has died. We are still discussing funeral arrangements, looking for a proper burial site and asking about the right kind of headstone. Dini had been a part of the family for a very long time. We knew he was getting old, but we had never discussed these kinds of things. On Thursday he suffered an apparent stroke, affecting the left side of his body. He died on Saturday, May 7, as I was holding and comforting him in my hands. It was a bittersweet time. And yes, he was the very same bird that I set loose in church one Sunday morning in 1981. He became the object lesson of the longest running children’s sermon ever. (You can relive that story under the title Dini Goes to Church from October 2023.)
Dini was present for every meal in our kitchen since the day he was hatched, September 7, 1979. His cage had been by the kitchen table where he saw and heard everything. He always sang every time I came home. When we returned from a recent trip to Texas, he sang as loudly and vigorously as ever to the point Dorothy and I both commented on it. But we knew that old age was catching up with him. I guess we did not want to think that he would really die. He would lose his balance while sleeping and fall from his perch or be suddenly startled and fall from his perch. He would always climb his way back up, but he took to spending more and more time on the cage floor resting. He lived a remarkable 31 years and 8 months. We miss him. I just wish we had talked through this final part earlier. We included the family in the discussions. We settled on a resting place in the flowerbed just outside our kitchen door. We secured and had engraved a black granite brick, which reads:
Dini
9/7/1979 – 5/7/2011
He was a very good bird
Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Talk the talk. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.
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