Dearest Dip and Dot (the roundest of little fluffs),

Even though it has been six years since you left me, baby Dot, and just over a year since you passed away, Dipsy, I still think of you and miss you. I had a slew of names ready for when I got you first, Dip, but when your little sister came along I knew exactly how I'd re-name you both. Nothing other than my favorite ice-cream would have worked. Especially seeing people connect the two names together and laugh at the idea.

You two lightened my day knowing I could just come over after a particularly long day and that we could sit next to each other on the balcony. Peacefully looking over the pond or watching the bees float through flowers, knowing that I'd be comforted by your rustling next to me.

I laughed the other day when I rewatched the video of you preening, Dip. Watched you grow to twice your size, essentially a feathery loofah, and then shaking your stress away before returning to a reasonable size. I still watch those videos to help me when I get down or need to laugh for a minute. Its comforting to hear your baby chirps in the background. Thank you for that.

Dot, you passed away when we both were so young and still hadn't learned what death meant, your four years to my fourteen. I learned about loss when I held you that day after school in the vet's office. You looked even smaller at peace than I thought possible when you were alive. I imprinted your feet and wings in ceramic. But holding that was never the same as when I held you.

And thank you, Dip, for being by my side for ten full years. People, friends wondered how I could consider that a little bird was my best friend. And at the risk of sounding like a wacky bird-lady (which face it, I was) it's because you pushed me through every hardship I faced in my most formative years. We went through the aftermath of transferring to a new elementary school, pre-pubescent tragedies of the mind and gossiping about high school-level drama.

I always like to think that you saw me off to college, and then knew that it would be alright for you to pass on. Aai and Baba were with me that weekend in UCLA when the vet called and said that you died. I never cried like that before. But I also loved very few like I loved you and Dot.

Aai told me that day that I could cry; it was good to. But just to remember that when Dot passed away, when you passed away, that somewhere in the world a baby bird was just born.

I guess, I just wanted to thank you crazy loons. For teaching me the hardest and the sweetest lessons in life: about loss and how you always have a good force around you — no matter how small they may seem.

I love you and I miss you. So do Aai and Baba. But we know you're consuming lettuce and millet seeds by the thousands somewhere good.

Your much taller friend,

Jui