Well, the way I see it is that Mieli, being a "special needs" budgie because of his bout with scaly mites before I adopted him, was probably my favorite of the recent flock members. He was the one who was supposed to need vet visits every few weeks to trim and reshape his beak, which grew abnormally in the aftermath of the mite treatment ... only the little guy was clever enough to figure out how to file down and snap off the overgrowth himself using the lava rock. (And boy, did he know he was clever, and was very proud of himself for it.) But he sensed I had taken him in when he would have had trouble finding a home otherwise, and he was the only one that really would spend any amount of time sitting with me.
I gave Apollo more than a year of additional life by trying to treat his liver condition, even though he fought me every day over taking his meds. Had he not come to live with me, who knows if he would have been taken to the vet when he became symptomatic back in April of last year? So while it is sad that the liver finally did him in, he got to live a while longer than he might have otherwise.
Peter ... well, it just turned out that he was much older than any of us suspected. He was a very quiet little guy and he just went in the night with no advance warning. It was just his time to go and at least he found his "forever home" before leaving for the Rainbow Bridge. Even though he was barely here six months, at least he knew he was loved and wanted and safe.
What's interesting is that the five remaining flock members have been much more hyper since Apollo passed away. It's almost as if they were restraining themselves for his benefit and now they feel it's okay to play again.
Budgies. Such amazing personalities in those little feathered bodies.