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From: Karen Grahame
state: California
country: USA
greyname: Rhiannon
Category: Other
Date: 09 Oct 2002
Rhiannon and I have a "question and answer" game that we play. One of her favorite questions is "What does the kitty say?" and the response "Mee-yow!" based on her fascination with the cat, Gwydion, who often slumbered outside her window. Gwydion was quite old and failing fast; when the vet said there was nothing he could do we decided to bring Gwydion home and let him pass peacefully with his family. We put him in a quiet, dark, comfortable room on the far side of the house from the bird room and sat with him as he faded. As his time drew near, he stopped eating; a few days later, he stopped drinking water, and we knew to prepare ourselves for his passing. Rhiannon, however, became very agitated and began saying over and over, "What does the kitty say?" and then--instead of the regular "Mee-yow!" answer--she said something unexpectedly appropriate, something that she only heard in a completely different context, when I changed her cage cups. "Want some water!" She repeated these two statements over and over for the two days before Gwydion died. The morning we found him gone, however, she was quiet and subdued. That evening the family gathered to say good-bye; and when we returned from burying Gwydion, she once more asked the question, "What does the kitty say?" But THIS time she followed with an eerie, high-pitched banshee wail that she has never uttered before or since. She has never repeated those particular question and answers together. And she, who used to call Gwydion by name all the time when he was alive, has never once uttered his name after his death. How could she have known that this cat had stopped drinking water in a room far enough away that she could not hear or see what was happening? What was the significance of the wail? (This story has been published in Bird Talk, and will be part of a book I am writing on my experiences with my birds)