A few years ago now, my parents made a deal with my younger sister. That deal was that if she were to keep her bedroom clean for a certain amount of time, she would be rewarded with a hamster to keep as a pet. They seemed to ignore the fact that this was a terrible idea, given that we already kept several cats in our house.
The decision was made despite my input, however, and we soon adopted two furry little hamsters. We were told that they were both male. We were lied to.
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| LIES! |
Soon, our home was overrun by the adorable little monsters. At first, I loved them as much as anyone else might; they were tiny, furry balls of cuteness. I had no natural defense against that. There is no defense against that level of cuteness.
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| Had Hitler used Nazi Hamsters, we'd all be speaking German now. |
That was right before the Hamster Massacre of ’08 began.
Those hamsters were brutally murdered, left and right, by those evil, evil cats of ours. It seems like every day we were tearing fuzzy corpses out of malevolent feline jaws. Eventually, out of heartbroken despair, I closed my heart to the hamsters. After all, you can only see so many hamsters horribly killed before you become desensitized to it.
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| Meh. You see one hall filled with the blood of innocents, you've seen 'em all. |
I became bitter and lonely; I rejected all love that came my way, certain that, somehow, it would be eaten by a cat. And then, one day, there was Spunky.
Spunky the Hamster seemed, at first, to be an ordinary hamster. I started out feeling nothing for him; after all, I had witnessed the deaths of so many other hamsters before; I could not afford to become emotionally attached to another one, only to watch him die.
But Spunky would not accept that. He spent many a day by my side, following me around everywhere I went. He changed my flat tire, read me bedtime stories, brought me soup when I was sick, and knit me a blanket with love in every stitch. No one had ever gone so far out of their way for me before. Slowly but surely, he was winning me over.
Then came the night that solidified our relationship. I had gone out with friends that evening to hang out and maybe see a movie, but things ended up getting a little crazy. One minute we were playing Illegal Immigrant in the back of Sarah’s pick-up truck, and the next thing I knew, we were on a crazy spree through town, downing Cherry-Cherry Limeades at Denny’s and playing hide-and-go-seek in the Wal-Mart.
By night’s end, I was completely out of it, stumbling around a strip mall parking lot. My friends were gone, but I was too ashamed to call my parents for a ride home. They would surely have questions about what I’d been out doing all night, and why I kept mumbling that I was sick of pie, too, and then start giggling. I just needed someone to bring me home, so I could just sleep it all off. I called the only one that I knew I could count on: Spunky.
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| Also, Jesus let me use his cell phone. He's pretty cool like that. |
He came and got me, all right, but he didn’t just take me home and put me to bed, oh no. He made me sit up almost all night, sipping orange juice and snacking on crackers as he chewed me out for my outrageous behavior.
At first, it ticked me off. After all, who was he to tell me what to do? I could take care of myself… or so I thought. But after several more nights with ‘friends’ like the one described above, always ending with faithful Spunky picking me up and telling me off, my attitude changed. I began to realize how much Spunky must care for me, and I realized that I had grown to love him in return. With his help, I turned my life around. I realized that my behavior stemmed from trauma; the Hamster Massacre had shocked me into shutting down my emotions, and I was acting out as a way to just feel something, anything. But I didn’t have to do that anymore. Spunky had taught me to love again.
We were very happy, for a while. I kept Spunky in a lovely hamster ball for most of the time, which he liked, as it allowed him to easily follow me around while getting an excellent cardiovascular workout. We spent several happy weeks together; going for walks, attending local theatre events and craft shows, watching movies on rainy days. Even our occasional moments of bickering are memories I now hold dear.
The day that it all came to an end started out normally enough. I had stepped into another room to grab a magazine when I heard what sounded like a scuffle in the other room. Actually, it sounded more like a “cat viciously murdering a helpless, adorable hamster” sort of sound. Anyway, I burst from the room, my mind trying to reject what I already knew must be true. There, in the jaws of a big tan-and-white cat, dangled my poor Spunky.
I pried his mangled remains from the beast, and held him close to me as he drew his last few, painful, breaths.
“Spunky!” I cried out, “You must hold on! You can’t die like this, you taught me to love!”
“You must go on,” Spunky wheezed as he gasped his last, “You must learn to love… again…” and then he was gone.
I will tell you, my friends, that it was hard, so hard, not to crawl back into that hole of hedonistic madness in which I had once dwelt, and which Spunky had dragged me out of. I realized, though, that it would be an insult to him, and to the love I felt for him, to go back to my old ways, and so, for him, I forced myself to move on. I had to love again. For Spunky.
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| For Spunky! |
The moral of my story is this; hamsters are small and practically defenseless. If you are going to learn to love again, try loving something that won’t die immediately.
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