Big Bird puppeteer Caroll Spinney reveals heartbreaking story about 5-year-old

While Caroll Spinney usually lets Big Bird do all the talking, the puppeteer behind the most famous bird in the world is finally getting a chance to tell his stories. One story will break your heart and requires a box of tissues nearby while reading.

During a Reddit AMA session on Thursday, the first post was a question about his most meaningful interaction with a child as Big Bird. It wasn’t one about actually meeting a child in the costume, but something he did over the phone.

Spinney said that he once received a letter from a man who wrote that his 5-year-old son was dying of cancer. The child was so sick that even the boy knew he was dying. However, the one thing that cheered him up was seeing Big Bird on Sesame Street. The man asked Spinney if he could just call up.

“And I had Big Bird say, ‘Hello! Hello Joey! It's me, Big Bird!’ So he said ‘Is it really you, Big Bird?’ ‘Yes, it is,’” Spinney recalled. “I chatted a while with him, about ten minutes, and he said ‘I'm glad you're my friend Big Bird.’

“And I said, ‘I'd better let you go now.’ He said ‘Thank you for calling me Big Bird. You're my friend. You make me happy.’”

The boy’s mother and father were in the hospital room with him at the time, because he was very sick that day. In another letter to Spinney, the father wrote that after he hung up the phone, the boy said, “Big Bird called me! He’s my friend.”

“And he closed his eyes. And he passed away,” Spinney wrote. “And I could see that what I say to children can be very important.”

Spinney has been doing interviews to promote I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story, a new documentary about his life. It is set to be released on May 15.

image courtesy of B. Ach/INFphoto.com

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