Early this morning Raj, Taj, mom, and I watched for hours as owlet Kelly fought for, and lost, her little life. Towards the end, before she left, after Molly had lifted her up a few times and carried her around for a bit, she tweeted weakly to Molly who looked down at her, talked back in their special owl language, Kelly issued a few more barely audible "good bye, I love you" tweets, and then she was gone.
We are all crying because we also recently lost our best friends, Panda Pig, who raised me, slept with me, loved me, kept me warm through the winter, and also Bear, the Beaver Pig, rescued dying on Christmas Eve who actually got well and healthy for a few more months, gave us so much love, then passed only 3 days after PandaPig last April.
So, yes, guinea pigs do grieve. We can actually die of grief, as many animals can, and mom (having not slept and now kind of in a crying coma) will be resting today as she actually became acutely ill yesterday morning, so we sweet piggies are taking good care of her now. Our friend, Eric, is writing a book called "The Ghost Plane" and we are now calling mom "The Ghost Brain!"
We joke and kid a lot here, but today we choose to be silent and celebrate Kelly's short, beautiful life while remembering our
own precious loved ones who passed so recently. Because I bonded so closely with PandaPig, I bite everyone who is not him, which is
all the other guinea pigs, so I cannot runabout and play with them or cuddle with them and - it's funny - last night while mom cleaned my cage and I was on Runabout (before Kelly died) I actually felt very, very lonely for someone to play with, chase, and cuddle...mom noticed. She considered giving me a chance in the future with the Mahals when we have the whole apartment to runabout in, not just our pen, then decided against it because she simply cannot protect them and her hand surgeon does NOT
want to see her again with one of my "tattoos" bleeding and infected...so I am sadder and lonelier. NOTE: i never bit mom on purpose, she simply put her hand into my choppers as I was airborne enroute to take a chomp off Bear the gentle Beaver Pig and my teeth became accidentally embedded into mom's hand (still in the air, me hanging) so i's not a people biter, just that nobody is Panda and so I bite them. I don't mean to be that way, but we rescues are a peculiarly-behaving bunch, and perhaps I will settle down and learn to "play nice" because the Mahals seem to have fun when they do.
Today we honor the short, sweet life of Kelly, and celebrate the lives we have all been given and the love we so liberally enjoy together as a family.
Please refer to Molly's Blog and the MOD blog links to the right for more on Kelly, Molly, MOD's, and the poignant, heart-breaking beauty of nature.
love,
a gentler YumYum today
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