My mother’s canary


My mother loves many kinds of animals but most of all, she loves canaries. Since I can remember she has always had many types of birds in the house. Some were colorful, sometimes yellow, blue or red and other times they were gray and white. A few of them used to sing very beautiful melodies and others were so quiet that you could ask yourself if they were mute or simply they didn’t know how to sing. Most of them have died over the years or my mother has given them to her sisters, Mary and Marthis. Now she has this small canary with white and black spots, that my aunt Mary gave to her as a birthday gift three or four years ago. My mother says that the canary is a female and she calls her Bonita. She lives in a white and orange house-shaped cage, inside of it is a little blue swing, two sticks where she rests and on the floor is her food and water containers. My mother is very careful and responsible with her little canary. Every morning she cleans her cage changing the newspaper in the floor for a new one and bringing her food and water. My mother says that this canary is very different than the others that she used to have because every time she puts clean water in the cage, the little bird takes a bath. Also, when Bonita wants to go out, she chirps. This little white and black canary doesn’t sing marvelous melodies but if you whistle to her, she will reply. It feels like she is talking to you because she does different tones depending on the sound of your whistle. Sometimes they are more sharping noises than normal. One day my grandfather visited us and when he saw Bonita he did a little whistle that she answered with a chirp. We all laughed. My father also whistled, except it was an offensive sound, which Bonita also answered; we all laughed hard about that. I think my mother loves to have her because Bonita is her company when my sister and I are not in the house. Also, she makes her happy when she chirps, and she loves her color and little shape.  But deep inside I think that canaries remind my mother her childhood and youth, when she used to live at my grandmother’s home because her mother also loved birds. I believe that she loves having birds because of that and I didn’t realize that until writing these words.

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