What Scott said about the psychological pain of losing ferrets due to escape
is so true.  When you never find them, you are always sad, worrying about
them, dreaming that they will come back, crying when you think of them
freezing or starving or meeting some other awful end.  Terrible as it is to
lose a ferret through illness, old age, or accident, at least you KNOW what
happened.  Not knowing what happened to my precious Cody and Dale is just
tearing me up.
 
Another thing Scott was perhaps too kind to say is that I feel terrible
GUILT over what happened.  I should have prevented this.  It shouldn't have
happened.  They are in my care and I failed them.  Oh, I know it was a
careless young child who left the door open, and no one had any idea it was
open, and it was the dead of winter and why would anyone even open a door in
the first place?  But they're gone and I feel sad and guilty, and like I
don't ever deserve to have another ferret ever again.  Megabyte, the one who
was found, and Chip, the old man who slept through the whole thing, seem
very sad.  Even though they now bunk together, you can tell how sad each one
is, looking for his former cagemate and seeming very lonely.  And I miss
Cody and Dale so much too.
 
Kat
[Posted in FML issue 2209]