Sammi

The worst thing about owning a pet is suffering the loss of that pet. Today we lost Sammi, our Blue Front Amazon. He was 5 years old. We don't know why he died. We've speculated a host of possible causes, but we just don't know. We considered a necropsy but decided against it. Knowing what killed him would not bring him back or make it easier to cope with his death. If it was something contagious to the other birds, then it's too late to prevent exposure since we had no warning of Sammi's illness. He was sick one day and gone before the next morning. We only pray it hasn't passed to the others.

We only had 5 years with Sammi, but those 5 years were filled with singing and dancing. Literally. He started out by dancing to Queens of the Stone Age "No One Knows" and eventually learned most of the words to "Peanut Butter Jelly Time", which was his favorite song. We were working on the theme song to Ghostbusters and had gotten as far as "who you gonna call." We'll miss him asking "what you do?" whenever we walked into the room or greeting you with an enthusiastically shouted "HI!" when he hadn't seen us all day. His uncanny comedic timing of phrases will never be forgotten. Nor how he'd look at you with his slow black eyes and long lashes as he said "I love you." The intelligence in those eyes convincing you that he knew what he was saying and meant it.