Sometimes my job is very difficult.  I Greet ferrets who come into this
Afterworld alone, with no one here waiting for them, except me, and I am
a stranger to them.  Sometimes a ferret makes the trip across the Bridge,
but fails to understand that the life that they have always known is
ended, now.  This is very stressful for them, and those are the times
when I bring the new arrival to spend some quiet time in the Recovery
Hammie--a safe place to rest, while the shock wears off, and they can
begin to feel secure in their identity once again.
 
Then, there are the Reunions, and none are so sweet as the Reunion of
Bonded Cagemates.  Hoomins know nothing like this Bond.  It is true,
they often take mates with whom they share a good portion of their lives,
but the rythmn of Hoomin life is nothing like ours.  Sometimes we come
together as Kits, and grow old together in the separate world of the
Cage.  It is a small, intimate world in which we eat, drink, sleep,
dream, play, and in which we sometimes put our first paw on the worn
wooden planks of the Rainbow Bridge.  No Hoomin can truly understand
such a Bond.
 
The other day I was able to witness a truly beautiful Reunion, that of
Stretch, with his Bonded Cagemate Morgan.  I greeted Morgan on the day
Hoomins call December 28th.  It was a terrible day for Stretch in the
World of the Living, terrible.  His Morgan, she of the soft fur and
shining whiskers was lost to him, and his heart broke.
 
They had shared so much, growing old in the Cage together.  Stretch had
a vocation in the world of the Living, he helped his Hoomin daddy Mike
by pulling wires through electrical conduits for him.  This made Mike
very happy, although Stretch and Morgan were never quite sure why!
Whenever Stretch went to "work" for his daddy, Morgan came with him,
and afterwards, back in the Cage, they would discuss all the wonderful
sights and smells the day brought them.
 
They were always, always together.  And then, Stretch was alone.  He
simply could not live like that.  This is the way with some of our kind.
Stretch put his paw on the Bridge on the day Hoomins call January 1st.
 
He came across the Bridge quietly, with his ears swivled forward,
listening, and his whiskers hitched up with anxiety.  He sniffed the
air...sniffed, and caught Morgan's scent.  I think that he ran to her
blindly, his eyes full of tears.  Tears of loss, became tears of joy!
 
Stretch and Morgan collided in the grass.  They rolled, they wrestled,
they bit, they gained their feet and War Danced, they laughed aloud!
Finally, they lay side by side in the long grass under a warm sun, and
groomed one another, licking one another's closed eyes like a kiss.
They breathed in one another's scent, and whispered secrets, for hours.
 
There was no reason for me to intrude upon their happiness, so I went to
sit beneath the blooming lilac tree,(white today)and took a delicious
nap.  There was time enough to tell them about the Fruit Bar (they both
have a weakness for fruit)and the Ferretone Fountain (ditto Tone!) later.
After all, they do have forever.  Forever, together.
 
Sandee
[Posted in FML issue 5120]