Writings:
A Small Pearl
"The Game"
Poems/Songs
Year One
Year Two
Year Three
Year Four

Other Stuff:
DND Merchandise
Silent Muse
Music Discussion Forum
Friends and Inspirations
Words Never Die
Quick Pretention

Another Goodbye

Lucy is dead.

For the uninitiated, Lucy was one of the many ferrets owned by my family. Lucy and her brother Toby were the most special to me, not that I didn't love the others mind you, but it was these two, who came as a set, that were the ones I felt were "mine."

We adopted them from a family that should never have had ferrets in the first place. Up until they met us, the two had been kept in a beaten up cage that didn't even close properly, were never snuggled or given the opportunity to play, and were fed dog-food. By the time we got them, they knew nothing about wardancing, wrestling, they didn't even dook. Really, they weren't like ferrets at all. So I took it upon myself to teach them.

I let them out of to play every day, chasing them around and watching as they just kinda stared at me, wondering what they were supposed to do. It was kind of a frustrating process, honestly, and I was starting to think that they didn't like me very much. And then one day I rubbed Lucy's tummy and heard a noise, and when I let go, she jumped around at invisible enemies, stopped, looked at me, and then ran in the other direction begging me to chase her, a stream of "DOOKADOOKADOOKADOOKA"'s flying behind her. Though Toby was always the mellower of the two (of the whole group, really) he soon followed suit in his own fashion. From that point on, Toby would always poke his head out of the hammock when I came home, and wouldn't lie back down until I said hello. Lucy would deman to actually be let out of the cage so she could give me kisses. When I had long hair, I'd let her climb on my shoulders and just wade through the jungle that flowed down my neck. And no matter what was happening, I could still get her to wardance.

I think what I'm going to remember about her the most is that she's the only ferret I've ever seen laugh. Seriously. One of the others (usually one of the boys) would try to jump on her, and she'd either dodge them or throw them on their back and then look at them and do three staccato hisses, then dash off in the other direction. She was always the smallest, and thus the most energetic and the one that new how to handle herself the best. She could out-fight any of the males if she had to, even after her surgeries, and yet even in the middle of rowdy playtime, you could pick her up and she'd still kiss your nose.

I have a feeling there's something about their family we didn't know, because not only did both ferrets come down with Insulinoma, but they both had adrenal cancer too. I helped pay for all of their surgeries as much as I possibly could, and even when I was living in another town without a car, I still tried to get in to say hi as much as I could. And though I would come in to visit Echo, Tally, and Peter too, it was always Toby and Lucy that got the special snuggles.

Echo and Tally are both 9, the normal maximum age for ferrets, and though it's saddened me deeply, I'm ready for both of them to go. They're both a little sickly, like Jack Spratt and his wife, Echo skinny as a rail and Tally bloated to the point where walking is difficult, but they both still seem very happy and not in pain, so we've just been keeping them comfortable. Toby and Lucy were each 6, in the prime of their life so to speak, and despite their surgeries, still full of life and energy.

Then, in October, Toby suddenly got very ill, and before we knew it he had left us. Lucy was, obviously, saddened by the whole thing. We ended up getting her a new cagemate, Maximus, who does remain the most impressive little monkey I've ever seen, and that seemed to take a lot of the pain away. But a week and a half ago Lucy started slowing down a bit and showing signs of irritation, and we learned that she had cancer in her other adrenal gland. Surgery was yesterday, and seemed to go just fine. The doctor held onto her for the night for observation, and this morning, just like Toby, out of nowhere her life signs just faded away, and she was gone before he could do anything. Maybe she really did just decide to go and be with Toby. I can take some comfort in the thought that they're together again, at least.

The irony doesn't escape me at all. There I was, preparing myself for the deaths of two of my loved ones, and was pretty certain I could take it at this point, and the two that I thought I'd have for much longer are the first to go. And I'll admit to selfish thoughts of thinking that these were mine. These were the ones I took care of, the ones I raised, and the ones I constantly tried to save. And they were the first to go. And not only that, but now we stand to lose 4 ferrets, the original four who were together for years before we got a fifth, in the span of a year. I'm not sure which fact hurts more, and I don't really think it matters.

Grief truly is a selfish fucking emotion, which makes it even harder for me to deal with. I wanna drown this pain in alcohol, scream these feelings out of me, slam my hand in a door over and over again so I can only feel that pain, which would be so much easier to deal with. A life is gone, never to grace this world with her joy, her antics, her kisses again, and all I can think about it how much it hurts me.

So now I go to work, and then some time with the family afterwards. Then? Don't know. Don't honestly care.

Today is going to suck. Nothing's going to change that.