On July 18th of this year, I had written my very first post here on the FML entitled A Ferret that Collects POSTCARDS?!?! Some of you may remember this story of my first-loved ferret who is named Emmett Sheets (yep, that ferret with a first and last name). [For those of you who may have missed it or are new to our list, you should be able to pull the original post up in the archives.] Emmett has been collecting postcards for the last two years now. This started out as my way of letting him know that I was thinking about him even when I was traveling and could not tell him so in person. At the end of my post I had teased at the idea of inquiring if any fellow FML ers would be interested in sending Emmett a postcard for his collection. Surprisingly, many of you responded and have sent him postcards from your neck of the woods. I would like to thank the following people for taking the time and having the interest (or good intentions of doing so) to send Emmett a postcard/s. Thank you for accepting our belated yet very sincere Thank You s! DONNA CHRISTEN from Wisconsin Fuzzies Include: Bandit, Zeus & Jalepeno; Crimson & Clover; Sadie & Jasmine; Fenris & Frey; Aphrael & Flute; Theodore Edward Bear, Blossom & Freya; Puma & Frack; Prometheus, Romulus & Remus; Epimetheus; Lily & Poppy; and her angeled ferrets: Hera & Athena and Samson & Odysseus PATTI RIGGERT from Oregon Fuzzies Include: Ursula, Timon, Sebastian, Lucky, Jasmine, Stumpy, Raphael & her five angeled ferrets Other Four-Legged-Friends Include: Barkley, the dog and Gabby, the cat SANDRA LANGE from Melbourne, Australia Fuzzies Include: Clover and Princess Other Four-Legged-Friend Includes: Gemma, the cat SARA SMITH from St. Louis F.U.R.R.Y. Ferret Club and Shelter Fuzzies Include: Spice Girl, Zeus, Taranis and many others, I am sure SHARI GUNTER from North Carolina Including: Chipper, the ferret KIT, HARLEY BEAR, DIXIE, STORMY & LILY: Founding Members of Kouri Fan Club from Georgia Many Fuzzies Included: Kouri Fan Club & Club Members DEB CAR from Minnesota Including her Eight is not enough ferret crew and many foster ferrets CHERYL from New York Fuzzies Include: Thea & Tajin Other Four-Legged-Friends Include: Cuddles, the cat and Bagheera, Hope, Thumper, Challah, Falcor, Glory, Pixie the Bunnies Second-part of post follows. BIG, thank you in advance for allowing me to break up my original post that was returned to me due to exceeding the line limits. Hope this revised submission makes it through okay. Audrey & Michael Fuzzies: Angeled Emmett Sheets, Mimi, Bodie, Doyle, Daisy, Beau & Luke The Other Loveable Animals: Hazey, the dog and Julius, the cat [Part two...] The continuation of this post may not be for everyone, but I encourage you to please consider taking the time to read what follows: I am very saddened to let all of you know that Emmett Sheets, at the young age of 4 has been the first of our seven to head for that fateful Rainbow Bridge. For the last two weeks, Emmett had been being treated for an ulcer under the guidance of our wonderfully skilled, compassionate and educated vet here in Columbus, Ohio. I am sure that a number of you have cared for a ferret with an ulcer or a similar illness, so you know first-hand that a LOT of extra hours of loving, feeding, encouragement and heartache goes into the added amount of care to get your ferret back on the hopeful road to recovery. I thank the Lord that we were able to spend so many (unknowingly at the time) final hours a day with our Emmett holding him, feeding him and continually loving him before he passed. Throughout this past weekend, Emmett seemed to be coming back to us having more interest in eating, eating more and watching his cagemates play around him longfully looking to be doing the same very soon. This past Tuesday, however, Emmett s condition changed . and quickly. To make short a 9-hour crisis experience, we received a phone call at 11:30pm Tuesday night from the emergency vet s office that was treating him that Emmett had not made it. Unfortunately, we have received very little explanation for what really happened to Emmett to cause him to leave us so quickly and early in his life. The emergency vet that had treated him (he is very ferret knowledgeable and has seen 1,000+ ferrets in his lifetime) stated that he had seen nothing like what the x-rays of Emmett s abdomen had shown. Emmett s spirit is in our hearts while his body is in a freezer at our vets office awaiting for our vet to return from a trip from oversees. For the betterment of other ferrets who may suffer the same fate, we hope that our vet may be able to find some explanation of what went wrong in Emmett s lil body. When we receive Emmett s body back, we will bury him in our backyard with so many other furry friends we have buried in the last 4 months: in June, we buried our 14 year old Chow that we had peacefully put to sleep in July, we buried two ferrets of a friend who drove from California to Ohio and who had sadly lost two of her seven ferrets during the long drive in August we buried a puppy that we had loved for 3 short days before her life had ended due to the cruel Parvo virus and now we will be burying my first dear ferret companion, Emmett Sheets. LISA from our vet s office and SCARLETT GRAY & SHERRY WAGNER of HOFA: Thank you SO VERY much for lending us your guidance and compassionate hearts when we had contacted you about caring for Emmett. You all truly have hearts of gold [which I believe have many living and angeled ferrets engraved on those hearts of gold]! One more thank you to my significant other, Michael: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for being the person that you are and accepting me, my 7 ferrets, dog and cat into your life! I am convinced that you were the reason why Emmett lived as long as he did throughout his illness: His goal in life was to war-dance on you every morning in bed until you felt terrorized by him but in the end, Emmett had his way with you as I told you all along, what it is that he wanted to do was simply to Weasel his way into your heart which you so lovingly and graciously allowed him to do in his final weeks with us! I love you, Michael! In the next few months, Michael and I will be creating a scrapbook with pages commemorating each of our current and angeled pets. It goes without saying that we will be including Emmett s infamous Postcard Collection amongst the many pages of his stories and pictures of him throughout the 3 years that he has been such a special part of our lives. If anyone would still like to send a postcard in his memory to add to his collection, it would truly ease the burden of loss in our hearts. Our address is as follows: IMO: Emmett Sheets c/o Audrey & Michael 2030 County Road 156 Ashley, OH 43003 Thank you all for taking the time to read our lengthy post, Audrey & Michael Fuzzies: Angeled Emmett Sheets, Mimi, Bodie, Doyle, Daisy, Beau & Luke The Other Loveable Animals: Hazey, the dog and Julius, the cat [Posted in FML issue 3554]