My friend called me at 7pm, distraught, a pigeon had been hit by a car and killed. He was wondering if we could send it to a person who brings them kind of back to life. A taxidermist? Yes that's the word.
I didn't have my creative brain on as it was the very last conversation I was ever expecting to have. I said we didn’t know a taxidermist and I suggested that he leave it beside the road for the shire to collect in the morning. He was worrying a cat would get it.
I asked him where it was and he said in the kitchen and then said he'd talk to me later and hung up.
I kicked myself a little for once again being a virgo and trying to logic the situation when creativity was required.
It was one of those moments where I was confronted with the fact that I can't avoid the situation that I really don't want to be dealing with. But there's no one else, I have to step up and be the grown up. I also have to lie, I need to invent a local taxidermist, maybe one who lives by my work. It's in these moments that I wished his family was nearer and the I wasn't the one who would have to deal with it. But I can't sit with that frustration, I have to move beyond it, it's not serving anyone or anything.
I'm also hit with grief because before dementia he would have been the one that I had called on to deal with these sorts of things. The person that I used to rely on in tough moments, but that layer of who he was is gone.
I'll call him in a little while.... maybe the 'switch may have flipped' and he has put it in the bin, buried it. If not before I go to bed I'll be jumping in the car to fetch the bird and dispose of it all whilst maintaining the story of the taxidermist.
Wish me luck
Update:
I called him, he was about to go to bed. I asked him about the bird, he was having trouble remembering it. I said I'd found a taxidermist who lives near my work, would he like me to pick the bird up and drop it to the taxidermist in the morning. He agreed.
The deceased pigeon was wrapped up in a bathmat on the kitchen sink. I'm glad I went, lord knows where the rolled up bathmat would have landed in the morning and he'd never be able to tell me where the bird went. We wouldn't have found it until there was a terrible smell. The cleaner due tomorrow will never know how much she should thank me!
We unwrapped the bird and put it in a paper bag. The bath mat is in the wash as I type and I've disposed of the bird. My friend won't remember in the morning, if he does the memory will be gone by the following day. I'll never have to produce a taxidermy bird.
I cried all the way home, I cried because I lied, I cried because of where alzheimers finds us and I cried because he was so sad about the bird and what had happened to it.
Grief is hitting hard tonight and I wish it wasn't so late because there's no one to talk to
