I've chosen not to write about the sadness, although there's a lot of it. Little moments every day remind us of his loss: things we might have expected, and many things we didn't. Peanut was an integral part of our lives, and now everything seems empty without him. But writing about it all is hard, and I suppose self-indulgent, and I doubt very interesting to even the steady reader of this blog. (You know, if I have any left.)

But I've tried to write about Peanut's last hours a few times. Not for you readers, necessarily, but for me. Because, you know, I read the blog sometimes, to remember the stories, and the old friends. And Peanut's last hours were so sweet — well, bittersweet, really.

As I mentioned, Peanut wanted Daytime Warm Toasties and Bird Ruffles all day on Thursday, and Friday was no different. Since we were both home, Bruce and I indulged him completely. I held Peanut while Bruce ran errands, he held Peanut while I took care of the Finsters, I held Peanut while he cooked dinner, we both did work one-handed, and switched off for bathroom breaks.

We've had a lot of finches die over the years, and knowing how much Peanut liked Warm Toasties, we always wished they would let us give them that comfort while they were ill. But the Finsters were always a little scared of us, so they stayed alone in hospital cages while they were recovering, or — usually — dying. So when Peanut wanted all those Warm Toasties, we gave them to him.

Peanut had a hard time getting going on Saturday morning, so we decided not to go to the farmer's market, and stayed home with him. Like Friday, we spotted each other throughout the day, to give him the maximum possible amount of Warm Toasties. In fact, the few times I tried to put him on his perch, he refused. I experimented with his nest a couple of times. He'd stopped flicking out paper strips a few days before, I suppose since it was too much work, and he wasn't eating the sunflower seeds anyway.

Shocking.

So I filled the nest higher with paper strips, put an extra purple blanky on top for comfort, and hung a heating pad along the back wall for warmth. Bedtime was coming up, after all, so I figured the nest might be a good alternative to sleeping on his perch. But he wasn't too happy about this use of the nest, and kept climbing out of it. Still, I figured by nighttime, he might decide it was okay.

Bruce and I stayed up late (for us) on Saturday to give Peanut extra Warm Toasty time, but even so, Peanut didn't want to go into his cage when it was bed time. I finally managed to get him out of my hand, but he climbed over to the door when I closed it on him, and just hung there for a minute, trying to will himself back into my hand.

So, obviously, we stayed up all night on Saturday. Bruce did most of the work. He really wanted to cover the whole night, but he couldn't quite make it. I know Peanut appreciated the efforts of the Big Sweaty Hand, and I know Bruce loved every minute of it. Warm Toasties are sweet, and tender, and full of love on any day — even more so when the recipient isn't feeling well. But about 5 AM, Bruce had to get some sleep, so I took over.

Unfortunately, I had to take a bathroom break a couple of hours later — as a woman, I find it quite difficult to pee with a bird in one hand. So I dumped Peanut in his nest, and I guess he was tired enough that he stayed in it long enough for me to slip away. In fact, he was still dozing there when I came back into the living room, so I laid down on the couch for a bit to rest while he was still quiet. I was so worried about Peanut that I hadn't slept much while Bruce was staying up, and ended up dozing a bit. Peanut woke me up a little later when he climbed around his cage to get a drink of water.

Peanut seemed to be in reasonable shape on Sunday morning. He got up for that drink of water, and even drank enough of his medicine water that I was pretty sure he got a good dose. He hunted for millet spray on the top of his cage, and snacked a bit on other things. So we were optimistic, despite looking forward to a tired day. Bruce was sailing, so I had Warm Toasty duty to myself. We were already planning on the best way to stay up all night again, to give Peanut another night of Warm Toasties. And we were also fully prepared to indulge him with extra Daytime Warm Toasties once he recovered, since spoiling him while he was sick was sure to set him up for wanting more, all the time.

Before Bruce left I set myself up with everything I needed (laptop, TV remote, etc.), and an array of snacks and drinks for Peanut. The only problem I'd have were with bathroom breaks, but I was working on dehydrating myself, so hoped I wouldn't have too many of them. Everything was set.

Just before 1 PM Peanut got up from Warm Toasties and looked around for some snacks. He started squeaking at the Awesome Blue Spoon of Seedy Goodness, and ate a few seeds. Then, still squeaking, he fell over.

And that was it.

I guess it was about as sweet as death could be.