Hi to my FML family,
 
Lynn recently asked me if I have considered getting another ferret yet, so
I thought I would write to my dear friends on the FML to say howdy, and to
share some ferret feelings.
 
I am still dealing with my father's recent move to a nursing care facility,
and the on -going (sigh) legal stuff.  The sadness over my Dad's increasing
dementia wears me down, and makes me even more vulnerable to the recent
loss of my mother.  All my parents' mail is forwarded to me, since no one
is living in their home anymore.  I get their dreaded junk mail from hell,
(along with lotsa bills still being incurred).  However, I am doing better
than I did during June and July, and have actual moments of happiness.
 
Please don't judge me as weird, (some of you already know I am, tee hee),
but I think some of you might relate to the following: entertwined with my
sadness over the death of my mother, still beats the pain of losing little
Fang. (he left us on Feb.16).  It has RESURFACED since Mom's death.  I had
accepted his loss, but since my Mom died, it is so fresh again.  Maybe
because he was our only one, our bond might have been deeper than if we
had several along with him.  (I don't know this to be true, and it is not
my intention to start a thread of the depth of one's love for a single
ferret vs. more than one, so please don't take it that way.)
 
Not being caged the last two years of his life, his daily routine was so
intertwined with ours.  He took such a participation in our home life.  I
don't know, sometimes I think I just loved him too much, and there will
never be another to fill his pawprints.  Lisette once told me that you
can never replace your first true ferret love, and her words are a silent
haunting of a truth that I already knew.  Kind of like your first true
love when you were young; it holds a special private place in your heart
forever.  I also know that another ferret will be loved and bring joy to
our home when we are ready.
 
I think about going into the pet store (they get MF ferrets), but I start
to cry when I see a ferret .  Not sobbing, just teary, and I have to leave.
This means I am not ready.  I asked Boyd (husband) several times this last
month if he is ready, and he just gets so sad.  It isn't our time yet.  One
of our excuses is that we have to move our King size bed (a major affair)
to get a few little dried up presents from Fang that we see, but can't
reach.  We had blocked the bottom of the bed off, but he had managed to
sneak through a part to leave us six poopies.  We think of it as one poopie
for each year he was alive.  We just sort of leave them there and don't
want to deal with it.  Before we get a new baby, we have to make sure there
are no lingering scents for a new one to contribute to.
 
We also keep Fang's little glass dish that he ate his meals out of (Bob's
Gravy, which is all he ate for the last two years of his life) on top of
the microwave where we ALWAYS kept it when Fang was alive.  We don't talk
about it, but it is just there.  Nobody moves it, and it is the only thing
sitting there.  It is one of the little memorials that sprinkle our home
with the love for Fang that we are still hanging on to, and can't face
putting away.
 
Little Fang's death broke my heart.  I know I could love another, but with
the death of my mother, I have been too stressed and sad to open my heart
up to another right now.  I am trying very hard to be strong, and will
always be a ferret mommy.  But just for now, only in my heart, where I
still write ferret poems in quiet times.
 
I still miss the FML (I canceled my subscription when Fang died), but will
be back someday.  I still get a howdy from some special ferret mommies and
daddys out there who keep my heart beating ferret love, which changes us,
and we are never the same again.
 
Wishing you happy tails, and sending my love to your babies,
lizzi who is trying to heal.
[Posted in FML issue 3508]