Did i mention she's a bitch sometimes?
Probably.
Before her I had a black and white long haired teddy bear hamster. His name was Amadeus. I find it amusing to give pets names after great people, as if they end up becoming that name and taking on that personality (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Amelia Earhart). Here is the story of Amadeus.
I had been kinda lonely at the time, this was about fall of 2010 or so. Something about the holidays just depresses the shit out of me. It's not the holidays in particular, but more so the space in between. Those days when it gets dark early and theres really nothing to do but either go sit in a bar or sit at home with the TV. But i guess that's all just my own thinking, there's probably plenty of things to do, but none of those seem to interest me. So there.
Anyway, so i was thinking about getting a pet. A dog seemed like too much work and probably wouldn't fit well with living in an apartment. Plus my roommate already had a dog, so yeah, no dog. I dated a girl once who had a nice looking bird, I don't really know birds too well, but this ones name was Mojito and he was green with some yellow in there. He lived in a giant cage in her living room. It was kinda cool to see him come out of his cage and sit on her hand. She would put her hand up to her face and gently rub her cheek against Mojito's beak. She'd use her other hand to pet him and occasionally pull back her hair behind her ear. I always just wanted to reach over and kiss her neck since it was exposed at this time, but i held back because i knew it was her and Mojito's quality time, i didn't need to get all up in there. It was really quite a loving thing to see. It made me feel warm inside. The bird seemed to enjoy himself as well, so good for him.
But i also wouldn't be able to care for a bird, and he'd be cooped up inside my room. Finally one day my roommate came home and said, "hey man, they're giving away free hamsters at petco, go check one out."
I had owned a hamster when I was younger, and he died on me pretty early on in. His name was Speedy. If you don't know, hamsters have a very short life. 2-3 years max. So you have to be able to cope with their deaths and realize it's just something that happens. In the time they are alive, you do what you can to make them happy, and they're better with you than they are living in a pet shop with some asshole kid tapping on the glass trying to get their attention in the middle of the day when the hamster should be sleeping.
Amadeus was in the corner of the cage, trying to spider-man his way up the glass and out of the cage. I watched him for a couple of minutes, he was relentless in his pursuit for freedom, i took this as a sign from the hamster gods that we were meant to be, so home he came. The conversation in the car went like this.
"Hey little dude, we're going to my house now. I'm gonna take good care of you, don't freak out, everything will be okay...."
on and on like this until we got him home and he got settled in his tiny little plastic cage. The next day he upgraded to a 10 gallon fish tank. Then I decided to make him the ultimate cage. I teamed up with my dad and we took a large 22 gallon clear lexan food grade box (which i "borrowed" from work) and cut out the center of the lid, replacing it with screen and some support rods. I drilled holes in the sides of the box for ventilation and took some of my dads pvc pipes to make him some cool digs. This was a hamster den if I've ever seen it. He seemed to enjoy himself.
We grew very close, Kay and i would split the cleaning duties. I didn't handle him much, but she would come home every night and scoop him up and spend time with him. I don't think he liked me touching him (it's probably because my hands got sweaty and hers didn't) and that didn't bother me. I knew that my job was to give him the things he needed and provide him with :
a. shelter
b. Food and water
c. a decent and peaceful living enviorment
In the morning before i left for work, Amadeus would wait for me to feed him. I gave him dried cranberries as a treat. Rubbing them between my forefinger and thumb tended to make the cranberries plump and warm, just how he liked them.
I noticed that he would sneeze occasionally, and figured it might just be the dust from the wood shavings we used for his bedding. I tended to put too much in his cage because he liked to burrow down in it. Eventually it led to his death.
It was this past summer that Amadeus died, i believe the heat had something to do with it. The heat combined with the dusty wood shavings did him in. He was sneezing so much, it got really bad, and it hurt me, it pained my heart each time to hear him suffer. Finally one day Kay turned to me in bed and said, "He's really sick, we should do something". So i got up and did some research on google, found some holistic stuff that would help him out, and we drove down to whole foods to buy his medicine. The medicine seemed to help Amadeus, but he was still lethargic, and the next day Kay called me over to his cage, and there he was, laying on his side gasping for air. I picked him up and sat in this swivel chair i kept by his cage, holding him in a towel in my lap. It hurt me so much inside, my eyes welled up with tears. He was trying so hard to live. There was a bit of alcohol concentrated in his medicine, and Kay suggested the idea that if he was going to die, we should get him lit. I thought it proper, so the three of us got lit together, Amadeus with a dropper in his face, Kay and I with the bottle. He fought and fought, there in my lap, and Kay began to cry, we both kinda cried, and i thought about the time I brought Amadeus home, and the conversation him and i had in the car.
Finally, sometime after midnight, he rolled onto his back, and i swear we had a moment together. There he was, this black and white, long haired, classy fucking hamster who didn't like to be touched by me, and would you believe it? He reached his little hand out, and grasped my finger. Starring at each other through clouded eyes, his clouded by sickness, mines clouded by tears, i could almost feel him inside of my mind. We became one that day. It was like the episode of Star Trek when Capt. Picard and Spock mind meld. He held my hand for awhile like that, and finally died like that. I put him up to my cheek and remembered him dearly.
I had bought some handkerchiefs to wear with some of my suits and pulled out one of three white ones. I have a thing for handkerchiefs, first using my dads, which somehow always smelled like him, and when my grandfather died, my mom went back to El Salvador for the funeral, and brought home my grandfathers handkerchief, in a zip lock bag, preserving him through that for me.
Amadeus was wrapped in a stiff white handkerchief, and placed in a cigar box. I was starting a new job the next day, and Kay and i placed the cigar box in the cage, and tried to get some sleep. Kay swore all night that she could hear him running in his wheel. I believe she was more emotionally attached to him than I, although for Amadeus and I it was a different kind of love. My love for Amadeus was a fatherly one, but at the same time I also respected him and understood that i couldn't coddle him all the time. He's his own animal, as are we, as am i.
I've grown to understand and appreciate death. I understand that people leave, and we have to cope with that in whatever way we need to. I believe in this time i began to understand that Kay had a problem letting people go. That manifested later. But that's another story for another night.
All this for a fucking hamster you say?
Yes dear reader, i loved him as you love your father or mother, or as you love your favorite little piece of peace on this earth.
The next day, after work, i went to Kay's fathers house and we buried him in the backyard. We played "Rock me Amadeus" by Falco and "Dead Flowers" by Townes Van Zant (which is played at the end of "The Big Lebowski", which associates Amadeus with Donny, and hell, come on, we all love Donny.)
Kay bought what i believe to be Jasmine to plant atop his grave. It was a very beautiful service, we all said some words, Kay burnt some sage (hippy dippy shit i don't really agree with, but we're all different people right?) and down into the ground the poor bastard Amadeus went. Along with all the other people i've put in the ground my whole life.
We all deal with grief in different ways, and as i was starting a new job, i threw myself completely into it, which i believe helped to make me better at it. Kay dealt with it in a different way, how, i'm not sure, she just dealt with it.
The next week we went out and took a look at some different hamsters, Amelia stood out the most, and she looked the healthiest, so home she came.
People come and go, and the going part is the hardest, this is true, but one cannot only think about the going. There's so much in between that accounts for so much more. There's substance, there's something in there, you just have to work it out. Your emotions are like a dough, you need to knead them until you can form them, and then bake them into something tasty, to share with others, and not only be caught up so far into it, that you spend all your time starring at the dough on the table and not doing any actual work. It takes strength, and the salt from your tears only make it be balanced. It's not too fucking sweet.
Here is Amadeus, trying to crawl out. That cheeky little bastard.
