And yet all grief is terrible.

In October of 2022, I wrote one of my many thinkpieces on Hamlet on my tumblr blog. I end the post with stating that Hamlet doomed himself, engineering his demise of his own free will, “in the throes of terrible grief. And yet all grief is terrible”. It feels a little … weird to reference my own writing, but that stays with me. Hamlet’s grief feels massive, it is an explosion of feeling that stains all of Denmark. But yet, all grief is this way.

I’m not exactly a stranger to grief or loss. As an adult, people you have known and loved have died. Pets. It’s all hard. But when you’re out of it, you forget.

For the last 6 months, I have had the absolute pleasure of working at a zoo. At this zoo, I met a wonderful little Rainbow Lorikeet named Sissy. Sissy was 18 years old (nearly 19 at the time of her death) and a ray of light. She loved to dance. You would bob your body up and down and she’d return it, singing happily as she went. She would even dance if you just moved your ID tag up and down on the retractable string. Sissy showed love to me and all guests who encountered her, inviting us to gaze on her beautiful feathers and perhaps even dance with her.

Sissy had health problems, severe by the time I met her. She ultimately was euthanized due to liver and kidney failure.

I was hit by Sissy’s loss like a truck. I was shocked and surprised by the way it affected me. It felt like something inside my heart had shriveled. I cried so uncontrollably I had to leave work early.

I wasn’t expecting to be unfeeling about Sissy’s death. In fact, when discussing her health in the past, I had made a comment to a coworker about how much it would hurt when she passed. But I wasn’t expecting the grief to be so all-consuming. So overwhelming. So terrible.

And yet, all grief is terrible.

My favorite memory of Sissy will be a slow day, where we spent most of my shift in the Lorikeet aviary together. I took pictures of her, danced with her, chatted with her. Eventually, a guest wandered to our humble corner of the zoo. This guest was interested in the birds. I first introduced her to Sissy, the best bird ever, then continued walking with her through the aviary to the Laughing Kookaburra who had caught her attention. Marcella, the Laughing Kookaburra, is a beautiful bird. She sat directly in the sun on the tallest perch in the aviary, surveying her territory. She is a great marvel. But Sissy, the tiny Lorikeet with arthritis and kidney problems, is a great marvel, too. She did not care for the attention being shifted to Marcella. She walked (she did not fly very well in the end of her life) up to us and began tweeting at me and dancing. I tried to continue talking to the guest, but I was so taken by Sissy’s display that I had to take a brief pause to dance with her and give her the attention she deserved.

I think of that day with Sissy and the massive feelings she evoked from me in her wake. How she was reminding me when she was alive that tho she be little, she was a bright star worthy of our attention. Her effect was much larger than her size, when she was with us and now that she’s gone.