| Sunny Side Up May 19, 2004 � 2001 Kathleen Gibson For the Love of Little Animals I've always been a fool for animals. As a tiny child I kissed worms. Later I wept over dead songbirds until my parents allowed me living creatures to love. Cats, dogs, rabbits, a squirrel, a duck, hamsters. After I married, I was blessed with children -- and a good excuse to keep critters. More dogs and cats, bunnies and goats. Fish. A budgie. And forever, hamsters. Coco came to me at the tippy-tail end of thirty-five years of hamster ownership. The children were grown. Only one hamster remained-Petite Sonantina Chante Dolce Vivace. In English: Tiny tune sung sweetly and quickly. At over two, Tina couldn't live much longer. I prepared myself for a hamster-less house forevermore. A friend called one day. She needed a home for a hamster. Her daughter had lost interest in the creature and she wasn't about to pick up the slack. Would I take their pet, cage and all? Coco was the color of coffee with cream, as soft as Christmas velvet. I fell in love. Again. Okay, sure, I said. Her cage came into my office, and we assembled some good stories, she and I. Time got away on me. Tina died. Coco, much younger, became the favorite toy of visiting children, the coveted prey of both cat and dog. She suffered and survived them all, finally dying of old age in my hands, two weeks before Christmas. I nestled her in a plastic margarine tub. Decided to leave her in the garage till our prairie earth thawed in spring. Four months later snow still covered the lawn, but our pet cemetery under the spreading crabapple tree was bare and soft. I donned mud boots, headed into the garage, grabbed a shovel and looked for the margarine tub. I found it right where I left it -- next to the willow reindeer with the missing nose. The shovel easily carved out a chunk of sodden earth. I didn't look down as I lifted the plastic lid and dumped the contents. Didn't peek till I felt the container light in my hands. All I could see was Coco's nest of cedar chips and quilt batting. A shovelful of soil hovered over the hole before my curiosity got the better of me. I set down the shovel, crouched, picked up a twig, lifted a corner of the nest. Coco lay just as I'd placed her -- a small orb of brown down. I shouldn't have looked. My throat grew a lump, my eyes began to sting. In went the dirt, fast. It was just a stupid hamster, after all. Then I remembered. No, it wasn't. It was the end of a long tradition. Of years of caresses on Christmas velvet, of twitching pink noses poked between bars, of children's giggles of delight at the scurry of tiny paws over jeans, under sweatshirts. I cried then. And I put a cross on Coco's grave. After all, tiny animals are God's creatures, too. You can respond to this column at [email protected] |
 |