Last year on the 4th of July I lost May. Quite literally. She bolted out the sliding glass door while I was at the grocery store getting extra supplies as my Mom andDad in-laws were going to be with us for dinner to celebrate Bear's 5th of July birthday. It's a long story but basically, she got spooked and took off. So I spent the 4th walking the streets around our home calling her name until it was too dark to see and too dark for her to fly. I was up at dawn on the 5th and Bear managed to figure out which tree she was in so I spent the day underneath it talking to her and trying to coax her down............I should explain that May was the female of a mated pair of cockatiels I inherited from one of my nephews when he outgrew them. I got them just after we found out I couldn't have kids and those damn birds are the ones who really brought me back out into the world. They were there when I was finally able to function as a person again; there when I went house-hunting; there when we moved and there when Christopher left on the Monday after our week-end move and I was left alone again to unpack the house and "start our new life as homeowners". Those birds were the only ones who were ALWAYS there with me no matter what. Until Figaro died and I came downstairs on the morning of Dec. 18th 2005 to find him on the floor of their cage. From where I picked him up and then laid down on the floor underneath their cage crying, holding him in my hands and begging him to wake up . He didn't. I found out later from my sister-in-law that he had lived to be 20 or more and then obviously had died in his sleep which made it easier to know but not easier to bear. Mourning him had almost killed May as they had been together as long as she'd been alive (she was the younger of the two) and I was afraid to leave her for a very long time for fear that the pain of loosing him and then having me gone would kill her as well. The only thing that saved me from the grief of loosing him was getting Molly in January (just an itty, bitty ball of fur with a big smile on her face) and the knowledge that, by the end of the month of May, it was beginning to look as though May, my girl, would survive his loss as well.........So I spent all day the 5th under a tree. From dawn to dusk and by 9pm, when it was starting to get dark, and she was still more than 50' up into the branches of an evergreen I just started to cry. I told her if she didn't come down I'd have to leave and she'd have to spend another night in a tree and wouldn't she just please come down..... please come down May..........and she launched into the air and flew over my head in a circle and then back into that damn tree and I had to go home alone again. I was back again at dawn on the 6th but she pretty much stopped talking to me and when I went home to go to the bathroom and to say good-bye to Bear, who had to get on a plane again, she changed trees and then wouldn't tell me where she was....... My Dad told me later that maybe she left to spare me the pain of finding her the way I did Figaro. In fact, I got Penelope because her owner had been eyeing the posters I plastered all over theneighborhood to help me find May. I walked the streets calling and looking for May for a long time and Mary said she figured anyone who would make a poster like I had would just have to be a good and loving pet owner so, in a way, I got P because I lost May. But that doesn't make it better. I failed my children and on Dec. 16th, almost 1 year to the day since loosing Figaro and a little less than 6 months after loosing May........... I was going to lose Molly as well. She wouldn't even make it to her first birthday. And I miss her as much now as I ever did and I still have family Christmas presents sitting on the floor of the closet unopened and I don't have any idea of how I'm going to get through my hubby's birthday without tears and I just want Molly........... And this "saga" isn't even the reason I'm really here this morning.I was watching Good Morning America this morning and saw the story of a 15yr old girl who had lost her ENTIRE family to a drunk driver. Mom, Dad, two sisters, she and the chihuahua had all been in the car together at twilight when they were hit head-on by a guy doing over 75mph. The cops and paramedics all said it was the worst crash they'd seen in their careers and somehow she survived it along with the family dog whom they'd found, after she told them in the hospital that he had also survived, and they'd torn the car even further apart to find him in a crushed carseat and brought him straight to the hospital to be with her. This family was a huge part of a small town community in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Mom quit a high-paying nursing job to be the nurse at their middle school and Dad was a teacher/coach who bought his teams a bus to travel on with his own money. When she got out of the hospital, the town lined the streets as for a parade to welcome and encourage her and she made it her mission to fight drunk driving to honor her family. The man who killed them also died in the crash but what she found out was that he'd been drunk on a US Airways plane and they'd continued serving him until he got off........ It also seems that he stopped at a mini-mart on the drive home and bought MORE alcohol, apparently to finish the drive with....... which he did. So the governor of New Mexico prohibited US Airways from serving ANY ALCOHOL on ANY flight coming into or going out of New Mexico and they will apparently have to reapply for the license to serve alcohol on those flights again and their application be subject to review and approval by a board of some kind. The governor also yanked theliqueur license of the mini-mart that enabled the driver who killed her family and this too is another example of this country'sridiculous need to go out and celebrate EVERYTHING with a drink in their hand (or, in some cases, BOTH hands). So while everyone else goes out to celebrate freedom, liberation andindependence on this "holiday"....those of us who will not be "liberated", cannot be freed and will never beindependent of our grief salute you. On behalf of all the soldiers who have given their lives, the families of those soldiers who have donated, if not given, their lives as well and on behalf of all the mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters and brothers who have lost their lives or had them taken.....We, the bereaved, salute you.God......... I feel old. I miss you Midget.......