Mourning A Loss...

The funny thing about pets is how such a tiny, little friend can leave such a big hole in your heart when they die! While we were up visiting my Mom in Sherbrooke, our dwarf hamster Jellybean passed away, the diabetes finally getting the best of her. She did live with us for almost a full year, living 7 months longer than Nipper, who was also female and diabetic.

We still have our male dwarf hamster, Wuffles, who is now well over a year and a half old. He’s an old creaky fellow by dwarf hamster standards, but a true gentleman who loves to be cuddled and coddled. When our friend, Tanya, called us in Sherbrooke late Thursday night to tell us that Jellybean has passed away, Bethany and Erin dissolved into tears and kept saying “We thought Wuffles would die first!”

Tonight we buried Jellybean in our backyard under the same bleeding heart bush as Nipper and remembered her life with tears and giggles. Bethany dearly wanted to dig to see if Nipper’s skeleton would be there by now but I managed to explain the concept of resting in PEACE to my budding forensic scientist/archeologist.

One of the things that pets teach us is how to open our hearts to love something, even though it may not be with us forever. The girls are coming to understand that loving small rodents with shorter life spans means saying goodbye more often than with a larger pet, but that the joy of loving them and having them in our lives is worth the pain of saying goodbye when they go. Erin is having a harder time since Jellybean was “her Bean”. I’m not sure how much longer Wuffles will be with us either. 2 years is considered long for a dwarf hamster... so we’ll just treasure the time we have left with him, and then maybe take a little break for a bit. Pets have a wonderfully magical way of appearing in your lives just when you need them the most. I’ve never thought that rushing out right away to fill the void with a new furry bundle really honoured the life of the pet you’d just said goodbye to.

Goodbye Jellybean! You taught us that not a female dwarf hamster could be hand tamed if you were patient enough and started young. You taught us how to laugh when you boxed at everything like a little fighting kangaroo and we will really, really, really miss you.