A Special Place

Day 72: The first ornament to be hung on the tree and the last to be removed is a memory which runs as deeply as any river and with many complex undercurrents, some so dangerous that they must be avoided at all costs. You see, for many years, I shared my life with a Cockatoo. I say "shared," but he was in fact the precise geographic center of the Universe, as he was often told. For all of knowing this full well, he did not exploit it, being content to love and be loved in return.

We were more than companions, Cocoa and I. Our relationship was much more like parent and child, sometimes with roles reversed counter to what you might think. His patience with me was endless; as if by willing it, he could somehow bring me to his superior level of intelligence but, dumb mammal that I am, he was forever one jump ahead of me all the way. His wit was matched by his capacity for innocent mischief, and he knew the distinction between something I had reason to prohibit and that which I merely wanted to make off limits for my own reasons. His teases were sometimes disastrous, such as the time he tried to fly off with an open can of tomato sauce. He discovered gravity that day and flew free of it just in time to save his soft white feathers from a dye job. Not so my kitchen!

My memories of Cocoa are precious to me, and so it is that every Christmas, his ornament is first to be hung on the tree and last to be packed away. It has a special place, front and center, as does Cocoa in my heart.