How a not so "rubber" duck changed my life

Almost two years ago my grandfather was very sick, my grandma had cancer, and my wife was studying and going to college which lead to a very rough period of my life where I was being alone a lot of time and worrying about my grandparents who were like my parents.

As a kid growing up I was very blessed to have a lot of pets, but unfortunately I never really bonded with them a lot as I never understood the responsibility they were. I had a dog, cat, turtle, 2 rabbits, a rooster and all of them stayed in my life for a very short time. My rabbit actually ran into my room once and peed on my PS1 and burned it to the ground!

I have always had a special place in my heart for animals and as I was alone most of the time I convinced my lovely wife to buy a bird to keep me company while she's not home!

Then came Kiira!

She was a young Kakariki baby and at the time we bought her she was around 8 months old. She was beyond active and taming her was one of the biggest challenges in my life. I would spend hours holding my hands close to her while she ran circles around the cage. After roughly 4 days she decided to grab her first seed from my hand and she instantly became my best friend. She would always be next to my table on a platform in her cage and I would work and talk to her about my problems and she would just give me strange looks wondering:

“Why is this guy talking about JS instead of feeding me seeds??”

She was my rubber duck and we spent a lot of time together, our bond grew and unfortunately my grandfather passed away a few days before the New Year. I was devasted and this was one of the hardest periods of my life, but whenever I was alone and feeling sad, there Kiira was, jumping and running all over me and eating my speakers to oblivion! She got me through a hard period of my life and a few weeks after my Grandfathers passing she went into her ultra sonic flight mode and tried to go through the bedroom doors behind me while I was closing them and I accidentally hit her and broke her little wing.

As I turned around she just gently fell down my arm, landed in my hand, and closely went over my arm and puffed up and hid into the small crevice between my biceps and my chest. We packed her into a small box and she looked at me with a gaze that froze me in my place. On the day my grandfather passed I went to see him by chance and he looked at me for the last time and you could see in his eyes that he was about to pass, Kiira looked me with the same eyes from that little box.

I rushed with my wife to the vets, did a CT, and found out her wing was broken. The vets told us she will never fly again and we should cut her wing off!

We decided in the end to see a different vet and he bandaged her up and we kept her in a small box for 3 weeks while her wing healed. We were told she will not fly, but if we took good enough care of her she might survive all of the stress she went through that day. We spoiled her with “candy” and took the best care of her while she recovered, we were heartbroken about the fact that she couldn't fly, but we promised we will take care of her the best we can.

After 6 weeks from the accident, she flew!!

To this day we believe that this was a miracle from God, he allowed her to fly and have the best life she could, as unfortunately we would find out, would not be that long as we hoped for.

As she grew older she felt increasingly lonely and we bought her a cockatiel to keep her company at the beginning of this year. He was her little brother and as soon as she saw him she came next to him to eat seeds together and nibbled on his tail from outside the cage! She was so happy!

The cockatiel learned everything from her, he was like every other younger sibling, he always followed her around, wanted to play with her toys, imitated everything she did and eat her seeds, an unforgivable crime!

Over time she grew closer to my wife due to spending a lot of time with her and she became aggresive towards me and she wouldn't let me pet her anymore as she did when she was a baby, puberty I guess, we fathers always draw the short stick!

This Monday she spent the day playing with my wife and bothering her as always, she was a little ball of energy and you could not keep her in one place, and lately she grew a habit of eating our furniture. We gave her some snips which she was addicted to and she went into her cage and ate all the food and water she could find, a pretty usual day for her.

The next day I woke up and went to see them and as I removed the towel from the case I found her very puffed up and her eyes were closed and I asked myself if I was imagining things so I called my wife over to check her out, and we agreed she was not fine.

I did the ultimate test, I tried to pet her, and she let me! I immediately knew something was wrong! We took her to the vet who told us she has been sick for 7 days, she had a body temp of 36 (normal one is 40.5-41) and she lost 5 grams, which was around 10-15% of her body mass. He gave her antibiotics, vitamins, glucose and everything he could to get her energy up. We were super worried, but in the end knew she would be fine as she was a survivor, if her broken wing didn't stop her, nothing will.

While driving home, she fell from her branch, got back up, walked to my wife as close as she could, shook herself as she usually does and closed her eyes and fell asleep. My wife started screaming that she's not waking up and that's when it hit us she didn't make it!

We were truly heartbroken.

It has been almost a week, I've lost my best friend, my small rubber ducky, my source of joy and my little mischievous evil bird. She was the best rubber ducky a developer could ask for and she will forever hold a place in my heart as long as I live. She was a favourite in the family and everyone loved asking us for pictures and videos of her latest adventures, in honour of her adventures, here are a couple of pictures for you to see as well.