It has been a race to the Rainbow Bridge for the last three ferrets in
one of my groups. Yesterday the sweetest ferret in all the world won
the race. Lily had been battling adrenal disease for some time and her
little body told her loving spirit that it was time to leave. I love
all my ferrets but Lily was special and everyone's favorite. No sweeter
ferret ever walked this earth. She loved everybody with all her heart.

Lily's first family met with me in an empty church parking lot. A
little girl got out of the car desperately clutching a beautiful silver
ferret...like a favorite doll. The mother said that she "didn't know
ferrets pooped so much" and grabbed Lily out of the child's arms and
handed her to me. As they drove away I saw the little girl's sad face
angrily glaring at me out the back window of the car. I felt terrible.

Lily was an unusual ferret from the very beginning. She was happiest
when she was being held....for hours! I had visions of that little girl
dressing Lily in doll clothes and carrying her around.....for hours!

Lily's favorite pastime was watching TV in my arms. Her favorite show?
Animal Planet of course! If I tried to change the channel she would
look up at me with pleading eyes...so we watched lions kill
wilderbeasts....and Lily studied and learned the lions methods.....to
use on cats. Many a cat in this household had Lily leap upon their back
as they calmly walked through the house. They learned to avoid the
silver lion ferret. So then we watched alligators glide through the
water, snatch wilderbeasts and then do a death roll....and again the
cats paid the price. They would curl up on the couch for a long nap
and Lily would watch them......and wait. She would get on the couch,
go under the couch cover....gliding underneath it like an alligator
through the water....grab a cat by the leg and do the death roll......
the cats hated it. So I decided no more Animal Planet for the silver
lion ferret....unless it was about birds (no birds in this house) or
dog shows (the dogs are banished to my bedroom or outside when ferrets
are loose).

Whenever I had company, the first thing they said when they walked
through the door was "Can I hold Lily?". Whenever my youngest son and
his family came to visit from Seattle, he would carry Lily around and
she loved it. He has lots of photos of her.

When I took Lily to the vet for her last visit, I asked the young vet
if they taught much about ferrets in vet school now. She said no. After
Lily's beautiful spirit left for the Rainbow Bridge, I told the vet
to take Lily's body and learn from it. She thanked me and later when
Lily's body returned home there were tiny little stitches in it
repairing the learning experience. It was Lily's last gift. Lily's body
spent the night curled up in a hammock and was visited by little Dax
who is fighting lymphoma, that first disguised itself as squamous cell
carcinoma like my Jude has, and then Dix who has both insulinoma and
adrenal disease, who lovingly sniffed her old friend. Later that night
I was checking on all three of my oldies and Dax wanted to be held. She
lapped the tears off my face before returning to Dix to comfort her.
Lily will be buried in the rose garden near her old cagemates Brewster
and Doshia.

When I talked with Lily about the Rainbow Bridge, I told her that I
would see her again one day and that someday a long time from now she
would see that special little girl again that taught her to be the
sweetest ferret in the whole world.

Nancy and her 18, missing sweet Lily and in total awe of shelter folks
who take in special ferrets like Lily all the time and love them

[Posted in FML 6928]