Warning – this is not for the easily queasied…but this is my life today.

Snickers – our family guinne pig, passed to his peaceful rest, right in front of the vet’s office. In my sons arms. As I was putting the car into park. One minute he’s here, the next he isn’t. I had an appointment. I’m wondering how one discretely walks into the vet’s office to tell them you won’t be needing the appointment after all. I mean I had to tell her, I didnt’ want to be charged for a no show. So, I leaned over the desk and very quietly explained the predicament. Poor gal – didn’t know what to say. And frankly neither did I. Oh well.

Sad as I am to see snicker’s go. – I was slightly grateful that my son is now 15 and not five. We’ve burried 3 hamsters, umteen fish, three lizards, a few frogs, about five or so hermit crabs, an entire aquarium of “sea monkeys,” a cocker spaniel and another guinne pig that we had on loan from school. We’ve burried a lot of animals in our life time. Except Trapper – our cocker spaniel – him we had cremated. He now sits on the top shelf in my husband’s music room.

While Dillon is not immune to losing pet’s, he’s a little more used to it now, I guess, he still has a heart. He’s grown to accept death as part of life and knows that while our days are numbered, so are the days of our pets. Snickers was no exception. Except that he was only 4, and he passed due to fumes in our kitchen – we were having it painted and it didnt’ even occur to me until it was too late that the fumes might be toxic to the little guy.

That’s probably why I let him do it. – I don’t normally allow animals to be burried in our yard – well, except for the hamsters – they were little. But with snickers, I kinda felt guilty. Okay I felt a LOT guilty. So I let Dillon build a casket (out of wood) and he and his brother burried the poor guy in the farthest corner of our yard while dad was out of town.

I told my husband about it when he got back from his trip – and while he wasn’t happy about having an animal burried in the yard, he was willing to accept it.

Two weeks passed and while I was out of town at a speaker’s conference, Jeff (my husband) found a small dead possom in the yard – not to be gross, but the dogs were dragging it around and he and Charlie had to distract them to get it away from them and properly dispose of it – (Trash bin). This possum was in pretty bad shape from the sounds of it, and I was glad to hear they got it away from the dogs and into the trash.

Then I went to work in my gardens and checked on the grave while I was there. Alas – the tomb was empty. I saw the bottom and sides of the, well, casket, but no top – and no snickers. So how do you tell your boys that wasn’t a possum? I quietly decided not to. And I left the head stone and planted new monkey grass on that spot. They will never know.