Azul was left alone

Azul was left alone.
No one said it, but he knew.
He stayed there, high up on my roof, between broken tiles and open sky, with one less shadow in his flight and a new silence in the afternoons.

I saw him day after day. At first, they were two inseparables: they came down to the wire, got closer to look, timidly explored the hole in my roof, and chose that corner as their refuge. A simple hole, but enough for them to continue with their lives after maybe having escaped from a cage. I could hear them from my bed: it was like having them right beside me, they made a lot of noise vocalizing and biting the wood. There was something in that scene that filled me, as if finally something small and perfect was filling my soul.

But one day she didn’t come back, and he did. On March 3, 2025, only ten days after arriving at their new home, the pair of inseparables didn’t enter their refuge before the sun said goodbye to give way to the evening. That day only Azul came; his yellow and green partner would never appear again.

With almost two weeks of observation from one of the holes between the tiles and the façade of my apartment, my bond grew more each day. My interest in knowing about that species grew every second, and I began to worry about what I read on the Internet, since all the pages said that this species always lived with a companion and that when one of the two lovebirds is left alone after losing its partner, sadness usually makes it “fly to bird heaven.”

I began to observe Azul’s behavior. The other lovebird who had accompanied him all day in his routine—flying near my house or perching on my roof biting the wood—was no longer there. From that moment he began to perch longer on the roof of the building in front or on the wires, and he made the sound that I associated as a call for his inseparable to reunite with him.

He did it once, then again and again. Sometimes he stood at the edge, looking inside, as if he was waiting for her to appear, or trying to understand the inexplicable. Then he started sleeping alone, in the same hole, with the same cold and the same routine, a situation that wrinkled my heart and increased my worry. To make things worse, in almost two weeks since his arrival I hadn’t seen him eat. I tried almost all the fruits and he never came close, until the desperation of imagining the worst scenario for the lonely lovebird led me to buy bird food at a pet store. There I discovered that the only thing he eats is millet, and apparently where he had been before, he wasn’t given any other kind of food.

It was then that he began to come closer, not to me, but to the food I left on the window. At first he came down distrustfully, like someone who doesn’t want to be seen in their fragility, but hunger has its own rules. His nervous flight gradually became routine: he came down from the roof once, twice, three times a day, until, on the sixth night, after his tireless calling and nights alone, he decided to fly for the first time beyond the roof that is in front of my room.

That day, at 5:30 in the afternoon, it began to get dark. It was already time for him to come back, but that afternoon was different: his exploration took him to a new refuge and he did not return to accompany me with that sound that had already become something important in the evenings. I confess that I had a hard time falling asleep; I couldn’t stop thinking about the lovebird, about his future, about whether he would find millet elsewhere or another companion, because in my life I have never seen lovebirds in the wild, never outside cages. It was too soon for another loss, since I still hadn’t—and haven’t—gotten over thinking about what could have happened to Azul’s green and yellow “fischer” to leave his faithful companion alone.

The next morning was key to knowing if Azul’s absence was because he had only gone away and hadn’t come back. I got up early and stood at my window to wait for the reason for my sleepless night: I wanted him to come back to eat and to his home on my roof. Out of nowhere, I saw my little blue-winged parrot fly toward the water pipe above my window. From there he watched me, vocalized, and analyzed the surroundings to see if I had food for him to come down to. At that moment I took his improvised little dish—because I’ve never had birds since I hate animal mistreatment and the unjustified confinement in cages—and I served him millet. I didn’t imagine that would become my routine: Azul kept coming, but only to eat; no longer to sleep.

I learned to be there. And I don’t just mean opening the window and leaving him food. I mean truly being there: not going out, canceling plans, staying alone so I could open for him when he arrived, because if I left the dish out, the doves would steal it. I began to read the sky and to know his schedule; I learned to distinguish his call among all the other sounds, and he, in some way, understood that if he called me, I would come out. Sometimes a soft vocalization from the pipe in front of my window was enough.

I watched him while he ate. He always faced me, watchful, not with tenderness, but with the look of someone who doesn’t want to be trapped again, and I never forced him. Even though my heart shouted “stay,” he came to remind me that the most real love has no cages.

I named him “Azul” for his white and sky-blue feathers, and because since he was left alone he began to paint my days with melancholy.
I became his guardian from a distance and, without knowing where he spends most of the day, his witness, his wait, a human worried about scenarios that rob me of peace—that he might fall into evil hands, that a predator might close his eyes forever, or that I might not be here and he wouldn’t find food. But I also understood something that hurt me and freed me at the same time: I am not his refuge, I am just a stop on his flight.

I know the day will come when he won’t return; I think of it every time he takes longer to come. I wonder if he found company, if he found another corner, if he’s okay. I’m terrified to think I wanted to move, leave this house, travel… but now what will I do? It hurts to imagine that he could die of hunger without this meeting point. But even though it worries me, I don’t consider trapping him. Because if Azul taught me anything, it’s that freedom is the language of the soul.

He left me many things:

The art of waiting without complaining.

The value of not possessing.

The love that is shown with respect.
And one certainty: the deepest bond does not always need contact; sincere presence is enough.

Sometimes I hope that one day he won’t just come to eat, but that he’ll look at me differently, trust me more, make a gesture, a game, something that makes me feel that he also remembers me. But if that doesn’t happen, it’s okay, because I will remember him always.

Today, as I write this story, I feel happy because my little lovebird still comes: sometimes once, sometimes twice, even three times a day. It’s now been more than two months since his arrival and since his companion left without ever returning.
Today I can say that these little parrots can indeed be strong and overcome grief. And if one day I see him flying in a group with other bird species or maybe with another lovebird, free, happy, or accompanied, I will not cry; I will close my eyes, say his name softly, and think:

Azul was left alone… but then he found the sky again.