Song for Jasmine

On Friday October 3rd at 16:40 CEST, our little Jasmine left her suffering behind. Although her body has gone, she has not left our lives, so I will not speak of her in the past tense.

Jasmine is our African Grey, 'Psittacus Erithacus' to give her latin name. Jasmine doesn't speak latin, she speaks French and English. Her names, to her, are Jasmine, Jazzy-roo, and Jazzy-rooster-roo. Somehow her name just kept getting longer when we called to her, but she knows them all.

Shannon, of Chippers Alley, has already penned a beautiful tribute to Jasmine. Thank you Shannon, we couldn't have put it better. Jasmine loves Shannon as much as she loves us, and always looked forward to her visits. Between visits, Jasmine enjoys talking to Shannon on the phone, and calls to her by name.

Jasmine calls 'Snuggles' (a.k.a. Dweezeljazz) by name too, often just for the fun of laughing when she gets her reply. The only other person she calls by name is me, but she thinks my name is 'hell-OOO-ooo!'. It can be difficult to get my attention when I'm engrossed in something, you often need to shout. Jasmine also knows that when Dweezeljazz calls for 'Snoopers!', the correct response is 'uh-huh?'. Oh well, that about sums me up.

Shannon and Nat both have a lot of experience at handling birds, so Jasmine enjoys playing 'gotchas' and receiving headrubs from them. She also loves having her tummy tickled, as you can see.

I haven't got the hang of that, but I have learned to sing to her. I have lots of little songs for all occasions. They're all silly and stupid, and the words change from time to time because I forget them, but for all my off-key efforts, Jasmine loves them.

I have a little song for the morning, to let her know that it's time to wake up, so she won't be startled when I lift the covers from her night-cage.

I have a song for when we play 'flicksies' in the shower, when I flick water over her while she leans down from the shower-curtain rail to catch the drops.

Then there's the 'hupsy-daisy' song for the end of the shower, when she hops over the shower-curtain rings as I draw it back to step out. She has to hop over the rings before I finish the song, and she always wins.

Another special song is 'birdie-birdie bed-time', when we tuck her in to sleep at night. She always gives us a good-night kiss after that one.

The liveliest of all, however, has to be 'it's the wEEkend!'. She often dances to that one, and always gets very excited.

At other times, any excuse will do to make up a song. In her cage, on her playstation, on my knee, or in a cafe in town, she's a willing listener. Provided it isn't too long, vaguely rhymes, and has her names in it somewhere, she loves it. With that many names to choose from, it's not difficult to come up with something.

I'm still singing to her now, and I always will. She put those songs in my heart and that's where they belong. Thank you, Jazzy-roo.