"Barney was my paternal grandmother’s friend. As a kid, I distinctly remember visiting my grandmother and Barney in Philadelphia. My grandmother, a daughter of Irish immigrants, was a widow who raised 7 kids in that home. She was an absolutely sweet and loving woman who was no stranger to adversity throughout her life, but I never knew it. I imagine she and Barney, a yellow-headed amazon parrot, natively from Mexico and Central America, shared more than we knew. Yellow-headed amazons are known for being “one person birds” - bonding to one human, to whom they become fiercely loyal. They have been kept for centuries because they are among the parrots that “talk” best. And Barney did talk. He said mostly what you’d imagine, but I often wonder about the unspoken bond that existed between the two of them as they spent their days together.