How do I begin? I thought that I had cried all the tears I had last week for my Petey and last night I came home and found that my little "Bouncie Creature" had gone to the bridge unexpectedly. She hadn't been her usual "Bouncy" self the past few days and I just thought that she was getting a bit older and at seven years old she had slowed down a bit. Her usual antics included war dancing on top of the three decker cage and leaping off the edge onto the small couch next to it. She would wait to ensure that I was watching her and just far enough away so I couldn't snatch her up and tell her not to give me a heart attack. And now she has broken my heart instead. She was the last of my original group of ferrets and the first ferret I ever adopted, from Jan DeJesus of the Gimmee Shelter Ferret Rescue. Bouncie is the reason I joined Mass Ferret Friends as Jan gave me a complimentary membership for adopting her and Brownie. Bouncie is the reason that my life changed and has enabled me to save so many other ferrets, forge the life long friendships with other Mass Ferret Friends Members, met so many other caring ferret owners and reached out to the public with education, donation and determination. Bouncie was the reason why I got out of bed everyday. Bouncie was my buddy who came to her name and followed me around the yard to beat up all the marigolds, biting them, rolling on them and distributing the seeds. When I had jury duty awhile ago I got picked for a particularly nasty case. One morning when I was hurrying off to court she didn't feel well, I packed her up in a carrier with duck soup and brought her with me on a cool March day. The vet's office was the next exit and I thought that I could feed her, and get her to their office on our break. Well that was the day that they gave us the case to deliberate and we could not leave the jury room. There would have been a mistrial had I not convinced the bailiff and ten other jury members that Bouncie had to come into the jury room and be hand fed every two hours until we were dismissed. Bouncie gave me the conviction to convince them as we passed through the metal detector and her carrier through the x-ray machine. So Bouncie went to court and the criminal went to jail. There are so many happy memories of my Bouncie who Jan named "The Bounce Creature" after visiting her house and making a splash pool of her water fountain, then hiding the wet rocks under her pillows. So many education days, fund raisers, and duck soup evenings that she peered through the cage to watch Mommie help another fuzzy while she dooked at me. So many times that she did her roll over trick when Mommie was sad for losing another to make me laugh through my millions of tears. Truly the wind changed direction in my life as I buried her in the rain last night and things will never be the same. I have lost seven ferrets in the past twelve months and have cried a million tears for each of them. But Bouncie was different. Did you ever feel a perceptible change in the world? Saraferret and Muldoone Ferret, Can you please look for my Bouncie and tell her that I didn't know to tell her a special goodbye and how much she changed my life? She took along a paw full of marigolds and a cheweasel for her journey and as a final gift save her Mommie from seeing her go. Diane W. [Posted in FML issue 5042]