One bird, two fish

My sister called me the other night just bawling her eyes out. Her husband and two sons (11,8) were out of town skiing, so of course at first i was like what the hell is wrong? After a few minutes of heavy crying, i understood the word bird. The boys have two pet birds, and amazingly they complimented their personalities. There was the quiet bird and the loud bird. Well, the loud bird had died and the quiet bird was pecking it trying to wake it up. This was freaking my sister out even more. She is deathly afraid of birds, so the thought of scooping out this dead bird and disposing of it was up there with plucking her toenails out with pliers. Just wasnt gonna happen. As luck would have it i hadnt gone to bed yet, was just in my jammies. So off i went to help my younger sister out, as we older sisters do. When i got there, there was a cat up on the roof just meowing its head off. All of the dogs in the neighborhood were barking (wasnt a full moon) and i guess being night it was afraid to jump off the roof for fear of there being a pack of hungry poodles below. So i positioned my car to shine the lights directly under where he was so he could jump to safety. This of course did not help my sisters mood.
After collecting the deceased bird and disposing of it, we had to go to walmart to get the other bird some food and treats. Again, i'm in jammies, a sweatshirt and grubby keds. Now i used to do this when i was in my early 20's, just go to walmart in the middle of the night in my jammies, just because i was lazy and i loved the stuck up looks i got. Now that i'm in my early thirties, a mom, and getting to the point that bed is calling me by 9:30, this was new to me. I still got the looks, but hey, what can i say. They were cute bingo flannel jammies at least.
She decided to get him 2 beta fish to replace the bird. Not quite the same, but we found a cute tank that seperated them (i had no idea that you couldnt have beta fish in the same tank or they would kill each other. makes sense to me). A boy fish and a girl fish. And off we went.
The next evening I called my nephew to see how he was doing and he was taking it really hard. I froze for aminute. What do you say to a 8 year old who's bird just died? Some how 'i'm sorry sweetie' just doesnt seem to cut it. I began to panic. I didnt want to seem unsensitive, i mean this bird meant alot to him. It would sing with him every night for an hour while he practiced piano. How were the fish going to sing with him? There are certain questions that i think only a mom can answer, and for me i took the weenie way out and my phone lost connection.