When I purchased my delicate princess Baby, it was because I was being
assaulted in a pet store, and I had to do something.  Yet, I did not want
to send some loony-tunes i saw at the gym to jail.  Two big guys helped me
out with her and all the junk I was told to buy so this guy could not grab
me again in the parking lot.  I just reached in and took the first ferret
I could get.  She was the best surprise gift I ever bought for myself.
 
I fell in love with her in a heartbeat.  Having her was for me like having
a real baby of my own.  Gosh- she was tiny.  She had nightmares for weeks
at night as she lay on the sofa with me when I first brought her home.  She
made crying noises, and thrashed her tiny feet.  I wanted to give her so
much love that she would never have nightmares again.  I do not think that
she ever has.
 
She was crazy for McDonalds hamburgers.  I would get one for me.  One for
Baby.  She ate part of the meat on the spot.  She ran off with the rest.  A
few years ago, when I moved, I found small hills of hamburger pieces behind
heavy furniture.
 
She would run each night to the door to greet me, scampering,sliding, and
slipping down the long waxed hallway.  She would lick and lick me and
prance and leap.  She never stopped loving people and life.
 
This clever being learned to sit pretty in the car on my lap.  I called
her name-she came.  In two weeks, she learned to sit, roll over and beg.
She went everywhere with me: the drive in movies, the movie theaters, the
finest restaurants, malls, banks, car washes, to my chiropractors, to get
gas, to the park-----Everywhere.
 
Baby opened my eyes first to the world of ferrets.  Then she opened a part
of my heart that had been mashed to pieces over the years to feel the grief
of abandoned ferrets and forgotten animals.  She made me laugh every day.
She was my alarm clock-nipping my toes every morning rain or shine.
 
When I had my last surgery, I was told to consider it the same as being hit
by a bus.  It lasted 6 hours.  I had only had Baby 3 months.  I wanted out
of that hospital to hold her again.  No one would sneek her in.  I Loved
her.  I lied through my teeth to get out of the hopital in only 4 days.
 
5 days out of surgery, she became stuck under a pile of books I had shoved
under the sofa to keep her out.  She was hurt.  It was my first day out of
hospital.  I could not stand up straight.  I was all alone.  I lifted up
the sofa and somehow got her out.
 
I could feel me bleeding internally and hear things inside me ripping.
There was no hesitation.  And I never regretted the damage or extra months
of healing.  That is the depth of love this affectionate, intellegent,
child- like being had already inspired in me.
 
Because of the wonder of her, I now have a zoo on my porch and in my home,
and have joined a number of organizations, and am out there feeding deer
and fish, and saving Robins snared in fishing line, and searching for
puppies and rabbits and kittens I learn have just been dumped in the woods.
 
Baby is home with me tonight.  She was too far gone for surgery.  The tests
showed a gigantic heart, insulinoma, probable lymphoma, and large spleen.
Surgery would have killed her.
 
I will have to wait and watch her die now.  But I will never forget her or
the love that she taught me I had.
 
Lisette
[Posted in FML issue 2920]