Hi, all.
 
I met a little girl named Snowbird the other day.  She walked across the
Bridge slowly, with great dignity, all by herself.  She said that she had
made the decision to pass by herself, and that she was going to cross by
herself, too.  She is an independant ferret, Snowbird is.
 
The first thing she wanted to do was to go to the Fruit Bar.  We had a
lot of cool, refreshing pink watermelon chunks there, then we were ready
to talk.
 
We sat in the middle of a bright grassy field of wildflowers and soft
breezes.  There were fat blossoms of purple clover, brilliant black-eyed
susans, and white dasies.  The bees bumbled and thrumbled through them,
growindg dustier and dustier with bright yellow pollen.  It's almost a
sacred color, you know?
 
For a while we didn't say anything at all.  We just closed our eyes,
and held our faces up to the sky and sun to warm them, and to dry the
watermelon juice from our whiskers.  We listened to the bees, and let
that breeze play along the length of our coats, lifting our finest fur
and laying it down again in rippling patterns.
 
Then she began to tell me about her life in a dark room, living and
sleeping in the dark, wrapped up in newspapers for a bed.  I knew that
she didn't want me to say anything , or to offer her comfort, she just
wanted to get it all off of her chest for once and for all.  Sometimes
when you say a thing to someone else, it can't hurt you anymore, ever.
 
Most hoomins are nice, but some don't recognize another living spirit
when they see it, they are maybe missing a little piece of their own, I
think.  Snowbirds first hoomin was like that, and it was hard.  But
Snowbird dreamed a lot about the Bridge, and talked to her cagemates
about it, and she knows that everything will be different now.
 
We sat in the sun for a long time, and we just let it work it's healing
miracle on us.  Snowbird is going to be fine now, she is going to become
the weasel that she was always meant to be.  She is going to grow, and
stretch, and experience all of the things that she was supposed to know
in the Land of the Living, especially love.
 
She wants to thank her last hoomin, her temporary Mommy Kim, for her
kindness.  Snowbird will always be greatful to her for rescuing her from
the bad place, and for treating her with the sort of kindness and dignity
that she had never known before.  Someday, a long time from now, they
will meet again.
 
She hopes that Kim likes watermelon.
 
I have work to do,
Sandee
[Posted in FML issue 4332]