Georgie (Yellow ringneck), Xany with Lloyd on her lap, Willy (in the middle), hubby, Marius Jansen van Vuuren, with Tau on his lap, and Arka the disabled parrot (my mom’s parrot) in his hands
Written, and photography supplied, by Xany Jansen Van Vuuren
When my mom passed away in 2020, I felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of me, and I struggled to breathe. It was awful. It was horrible. It was terrible. It was every synonym one can think of to describe the worst time in a person’s life. I couldn’t imagine anything good ever coming from the death of a loved one.
But I was wrong.
My mom’s beloved disabled Amazon parrot, Arka, came to live with us after her passing. By then, we already had a rescue family of two dogs, eight cats, and a cage-free yellow Indian Ringneck called Georgie. She quickly settled into our home, and her favourite pastime became foraging in our garden.
Because she’s a flightless bird (her wings are underdeveloped, so she’s unable to fly) with a stumpy leg, we had to build special platforms for her to navigate her cage, which was just to sleep in – birds don’t belong in cages.
In the meantime, my dad had moved from Bloemfontein to Ballito. When my aunt and uncle visited him, we offered to look after their green Indian Ringneck while they were away. He took to our home like a duck to water and found a new home with us. We called him Wingnut, and his favourite spot was on top of any curtain rail, watching his furry and feathered friends from a distance. Little did my husband and I know that Saturday, the 18th of March 2023, would be his last day on earth. While we didn’t have many years with him, we know that he had the best retirement in our home. We miss him dearly.
As a retiree in Ballito, my dad felt it was time to adopt a furry friend to accompany him during the next phase of his life. I adopted two lovely small doggies, Harry and Lloyd, from Huistoe Animal Welfare (based in Bloemfontein) for him. The doggies’ previous mom had passed away suddenly, leaving her five dogs and a very formidable African Grey named Scotty homeless.
When my sister and her daughter met Harry, they fell head over heels in love with him. We were completely obsessed with Lloyd, so much so that my dad surrendered his claim to his two possible new best friends (whom I’d driven to Ballito) and allowed Harry and Lloyd to move in with us and my sister’s family, respectively. My dad has since never attempted to adopt another dog – we jokingly say that it’s out of fear of his daughters laying claim to those pooches too.
Why these seemingly unimportant details matter is to highlight the butterfly effect – or as we refer to it, the “parrot effect” – that progressed after my mom’s passing: From Arka coming to stay with us to my dad moving to Ballito, which led to us adopting Wingnut and Lloyd, and a few months later, Scotty the African Grey, who’d become too much for his new humans to handle. He’s extremely formidable and overflowing with personality, which can easily be misunderstood as being obstinate, which is exactly what happened with him.
When Scotty’s late mom’s friend, who’d been fostering Harry and Lloyd before we adopted them, heard about the problems his new humans were having, she called to ask if we wouldn’t be willing to give Scotty a home. With our experience in seeing how birds blossom when they find the right home, and out of fear of Scotty ending up in the wrong home, we immediately said yes.
Scotty is the light of our lives. He’s an absolute social butterfly and makes sure he’s the centre of all attention at all times. His favourite spot is on the kitchen gate, talking to the next-door neighbours, who, when seeing how happy Scotty was, asked if we’d give their female African Grey, Paljas, a home. We agreed, and now Arka, Scotty and Paljas are happily sharing our home, together with Georgie the ringneck. The cats and dogs accepted the birds unconditionally. Most mornings, we start our day with a cup of coffee in bed with dogs, cats and birds scrambling to find a spot in the bed with us.
Opening our home to rescue animals has changed our lives, safe in the knowledge that each of them is better off being in a stimulating, healthy and loving environment. While I would love to have my mom back in my life, I find some solace in knowing that her legacy (she was a big animal lover) lives on in her passing.
