Emily

I'm in the midst of a downer mood at the moment. About a week ago, my daughter's guinea pig, Emily, was euthanized.Today, I picked up the small box that had her remains in it.

Now, I don't want to imply that I'm some kind of fanatical pet lover. I like them; my life doesn't revolve around them. When my daughter had just Emily, I thought this is okay. It's not a lot of maintenance, and it is a cute little animal-- palm size, with yellow and white fur. It was about three months before we found out that the animal would actually make sounds. We occasionally heard a high pitch chirp and thought where the heck is that coming from? After a while, we realized it was coming from this small animal, and it meant what animal sounds usually mean -- feed me, pay attention to me.My daughter trained the animal to go up and down the stairs. Unfortunately, we realized that when it went up and down the hall it would also leave little droppings along the way -- but even that wasn't a big deal. We got used to having Emily around.

So when we had to have the animal killed, I wasn't particularly happy about it. My daughter was pretty distraught, too. When they were having discussions with the veterinarian, the concept of having the animal cremated came up, and they agreed. Today, I got to go and pick up the little box. Of course, Emily wasn't particularly big, and neither was the box - brown paper, tightly wrapped. Somehow, it was just like picking up a box at the post office. On the drive home, I looked over at the seat every so often and saw the box just sitting there, pretty much where Emily's cage was when I would take her to the vet.

It was ... a little sad. I could almost hear the chirp.