My first pet was a parakeet. I named him “Jimmy” after my favorite uncle, my mother’s brother.

I don’t remember how old I was when my mother brought Jimmy home. My mother’s dog died not long after my 5th birthday, so I’m guessing my first parakeet appeared not long afterwards, when I was in the first grade. Initially Jimmy was quite scared and stayed in safety of the cage. But I spent a lot of time and, before too long, he was happy to hop onto my finger. Then he was able to come out of the bird cage and hang out on a parakeet play pen, shown in this photo with a second parakeet added later to the mix. She was blue. Her name was “Ipo.”

Looking back, the parakeets were obviously part of a broader lesson in responsibility. They depended on me to make sure they had food, water, and cuttle bone to chew on, and to clean their cage regularly and sweep up around it. This marked a different kind of task, different from being told to take out the trash. That was just a job I was assigned. But with the birds, if I didn’t do take care of them, they would suffer, directly and immediately. I can recall it sometimes feeling like a burden, but then Jimmy and Ipo would be there to interact with me, and the burden would quickly lift. It was an important lesson, although I’m sure my mother hovered in the background ready to step in if I neglected my responsibilities more than occasionally.

My first Jimmy died, and was buried in a shoebox filled with soft tissue paper just outside my parent’s bedroom on the side of our house. I recall that being a very solemn occasion, a lesson about death and dying.

That was some 70 years ago. But now, likely in a total coincidence, there is a small ti plant growing in about that same spot. But it’s no longer outside my parents’ bedroom, because it’s now our bedroom.

And after the parakeet “funeral”, he was replaced by Jimmy 2, another green male.

I remember that at some point my mother attached a nesting box to their cage, and I have vague memories of peeking into the box and seeing a few eggs. But I don’t remember baby parakeets emerging. Certainly that would have been a lasting memory.

And, what’s worse, I don’t recall when or how my parakeet period ended. Did they die? Were they given away? Why can’t I remember any of the circumstances? Is the lack of memory because it was somewhat traumatic for me? I just don’t know. Or, more properly, I don’t recall.