I lost Navi today.  Somehow, she slipped past me out the door and made
her way next door.  She was only outside for a minute.  Our neighbor has
two pit bulls, and one of them grabbed her.  She was not afraid of dogs,
and she wandered into their yard.  I don't blame the dogs.  They are what
they are.  They didn't maul her, but when the one grabbed her (I don't
know which one.  It doesn't matter) she suffered some kind of blunt
trauma.  X-rays showed no internal bleeding.  She was in severe shock
from what we could tell.  Maybe she was shaken by the dog.  We'll never
know.  At the vet's, they were doing everything they could to pull her
out of this shock, but she arrested and became non-responsive.  Her
pupils were fixed and dialated.  At that point she was gone.  My wife
and I went back to the vet's so we could let her go.  She passed in my
wife's arms.
 
I'm not writing this to get the usual ecards and sympathy emails,
however, although I know you guys will.  But I was thinking to myself
that old proverbial thought that ferret-owners sometimes think when they
lose one of their guys - that maybe my wife and I shouldn't get any more
ferrets.  Who needs this pain?  No more ferrets, damnit.  Too many damn
mistakes to make.  Too many illnesses to fight.  Who needs all this pain?
These gut-wrenching casualties, these tiny pieces of your soul - lost to
disease, lost by accident, by stupidity, and even when you do everything
you could have done and been as careful as you could have been, the pain
is the same.  Who needs this?  I don't.
 
I need the pain to end.  I am gasping for air.  I so need this pain to
end that I make this plan in my mind - no more ferrets.  No more kits, no
more rescues.  I will wait until all the ones we have pass.  I will take
the pain, one by one.  One will pass and I will suffer through it.  And
another will pass, and another, and I will suffer the losses until I have
lost them all, one by one, and then I will be rid of this anguish.  It is
a brilliant plan.  I will have taken care of my ferrets, done the right
things as best I could, and finally be free from those gut-wrenching
casualties.  Then, I will sit at my computer and look at all the JPGs of
my ferrets in silence.  I will no longer have to worry when I get up
about where I step.  The floor will be empty.  I will have so much time
on my hands, and I will think, and I will think, and I will think, and my
thinking will turn into echoes, and the echoes will swirl and swirl doing
tiny war-dances in the air, and I will be happy again, even if just for a
split-second, thinking of them... but they will not be here.  Not one
will be here.  My plan crashes down around me.
 
My plan fails me because I have not forseen the ending.  The ending is
the unbearable ending of silence.  It will be the most tumultuous silence
I have ever heard.  And even though my body will be old and slow, my
thoughts will be war-dancing in my head, alive as any of my ferrets ever
were.  And I will not have outwitted my pain, for it will have outwitted
me.  The pain will be with me always in the war-dancing of my memories.
It will shine up at me from the horribly clean and empty floor.
 
I sit here and think about Navi.  I have lost her on my watch.  I cannot
even conceive of her not being here.  Even as I type to distract myself,
my hands weigh a thousand pounds.  My wife has let the guys out, and I
turn and look.  I remember that they are only nine now.  They are running
around and getting into trouble, naturally.  It seems so surreal, as if
nothing was wrong.  Jasper climbs the outside of his cage and goes in
through the top door.  He turns around, confused... how did I get in
here?  I snicker at the little clown, and I realize that I have lost my
anguish for just a second or two.  He looks at me and I walk over and
rescue him.  I sit back down.  Right next to me are three piles of poo.
I wonder if one or more of them could be Navi's, and in my silliness my
anguish returns.  Scritch paws my leg and I look down and pick him up,
feeling so unworthy as I draw him close to me.  I hold him tight to me
because I am so afraid, but he wants down because he's not.  I sigh.  I
hear Sid beating up on Jaws, and turn around to see Jaws laying on his
back outwitting Sid.  I have been distracted for a few more seconds.  So
this is how it works.  Little by little.  I clench my fists as the pain
returns.  I close my eyes.  I hear a crash and I back-hop into reality.
No one hurt.  Thankyou thankyou thankyou - my mind is irrationally
thankful.  Jasper has climbed ontop of the cage now, and even though he
really doesn't need rescueing, I rescue him again.  And then I smile,
and then I cry and cry, as hard as I have ever cried.
 
But the plan keeps on working, even if it's just seconds at a time.  It's
not my brilliant plan, my oh-so-worthless plan, the plan of nothing...
Scritch stands up on his back feet, front feet on my leg, looking up at
me.  I pick him up and hold him for the second time, closing my eyes in a
surreal sort of comfort, but he's got ferret stuff to do.  I put him down
again, and I wonder if maybe he's looking for Navi.  I cannot keep these
thoughts from war-dancing in my head.  But he is warm and alive, and he
has come to me, unworthy as I might be.  I understand and then I don't
understand, and understanding flickers and spirals off until I'm shaken
back to reality by the sounds of ferrets and pots and pans.
 
It is after midnight now, and I am distracting myself by writing this.
I am still awake and missing Navi.  But while I am missing Navi I am not
missing Puff, and when I am missing Puff I am not missing Mocha, and
while I am missing Mocha I am not thinking about how stupid and worthless
I feel sometimes, and so the plan continues - second by second, one by
one, ferret by ferret, until eventually I am no longer the enemy of my
own thoughts.
 
My wife brings out our little girl, Chase.  She was born February 13th,
this year.  And even though she's the baby, Dusty has been sucking on her
ear and she's been crying.  My wife hands her to me and I put her on my
shoulder.  She lays there, sleepy, contented.  She is so small, just so
tiny, and I realize all at once that she is a tiny piece of the plan.  I
close my eyes.  My mind war-dances off again as I feel her little body,
warm and breathing, sprawled over my shoulder.  And even though I know
that one day she will leave us too, I close my eyes and I let myself feel
her.  And I am so not sorry that she's here.
 
Roary
Albuquerque, NM
[Posted in FML issue 4880]