This is Star.

Star saved my life when my partner was near death in the ICU. All the spiritual gurus tell you to list at least three things you are grateful for the second you wake up. Star is always on my list. Even when he bites my ear or disagrees with me about his destination when I take him out of the cage.

I try to see Star as energy, as a vibrational frequency of the Universe, but I never manage to. I usually see him as a bossy bird who loves stoned wheat crackers and insists it’s your fault when a feather is irritating him as it comes out. He also demands head-scratchies, especially when a mobile device or a remote is using up the hand that should be scratching him. This is when he gets the most adamant about that hand’s reason for existing.

Yes, I am grateful for Star. I didn’t even want him when he came to us. A friend whose sister had died of breast cancer was Star’s original owner. Her children were very young and the sight of Star made them very sad, so he needed a new home. I said no, but my partner Gail, in all her wisdom, said yes, we must. (That was the spiritual conundrum: do a good thing or limit the number of birds in the house?)

Her decision to take him in saved my life that January day in 2013 when I thought I had lost her. I felt unmoored like a balloon accidentally let go by a child. I was floating in the black nether space of fear and self-pity when Star caught me and brought me down. “Scratch my head!” he demanded. “Give me some cracker!”

And suddenly I was back on earth, with tears generously flowing. But the tears now had some laughter in them. Yes, I am grateful for the bossy bird with the itchy head.

P.S. The beautiful gray hair behind Star that matches him so perfectly belongs to Gail.