RIP, Dr. Gonzo

Gonzo came into my life five and a half years ago, hidden in Phil's coat. We had been to the pet store and had gushed over the ferrets there, contemplating finding a companion for Felix, who we'd had for a couple of weeks. One of those little fuzzies at the store — so pretty with a white head and a beautiful darker pattern on his mid-section and most of his tail — had particularly got us squealing. And as we left the store, I was a bit disappointed that we were departing empty-handed, but we didn't really have the money for a new ferret pal and we were still learning how to take care of just one. So when Phil came to the door later that night after "going to the store," and he unzipped his coat just a bit and I saw that tiny little white head peek out, so began a love affair that I can't really put into words. Gonzo was my little ferret homie. Don't get me wrong — I love Felix to death, too, and he is an amazingly smart and obedient boy scout of a ferret — but Gonzo would let me and only me hold him and pet him, and he liked to be cradled in my arms, sneezing every time my hair would graze his nose.

Saturday we did the only thing we could and we had him put to sleep. He had reached the end of his time here after a long battle with lymphoma. He just kept getting skinnier and bonier, with less and less hair and energy. He refused to drink water or eat anything other than extremely thinned-out Duk Soup (which smelled like vomit and looked like shit) in wider and wider intervals. To have let him go on and further deteriorate and enter a period of unbearable suffering would have been too much for all of us. Knowing he wasn't going to get any better, and seeing that the bulk of his days were spent sleeping because he was too weak to get up and drink water, we made the hardest decision a pet owner can make.

When the vet saw him, she was taken aback by his condition. Just a few weeks ago she had seen him and euthanasia was hardly on the table.

Phil was so brave and stayed in the room, holding Gonzo right through his last breath. I caved and stepped outside, sobbing in the hallway, staring at a poster of a cat's bone structure, yet learning nothing. I could hear muffled words coming from inside the room. I ached because I was outside, not there for either Gonzo or Phil, but I knew if I stayed I would have lost my shit and made it worse for everyone. I'm one of those Puritan types who is made uncomfortable by visceral displays of raw grief, so I curtain myself off from everyone else and shake and leak until I can return red-eyed to everyone else and act like I'm fine, fucking fine.

We cried and sniffled and soaked a dozen tissues during the two-hour ride to my parents' house, Gonzo's body curled up, still warm, inside the blue carrier on my lap. I'd open it periodically and we'd reach inside to rub his head, and each time he'd be a little bit colder to the touch, a little further from us, a little more clearly beyond our reach.

When we got to the house, we imagined taking a shovel and heading out into the pasture to choose a spot with a nice view for his grave, the cold ground barely giving as we unleashed our frustration in impotent stabbing motions between cowpies. But, poetic or pathetic as that sounds, there was no work to be done. Physically, anyway. My dad had already dug a grave beside Rhett's (the family's favorite daschund from a couple of years ago, who was hit by a car, and whose demise inspired both my father and my grandmother to lie beside him, next to the road, sobbing and holding him) final resting place. Dad said he dug the hole because we were suffering and we shouldn't have to do any work. Which is pretty much something the Best Father Ever would do.

So we laid little Gonz to rest there, beside the driveway, beside Rhett, and placed concrete garden border pieces around the graves to mark the beginning of a pet cemetery (although there are dead pets buried all over our land, from my father's childhood on). We spent the rest of the day lounging around the house, playing with my dad's neat new digital SLR that takes a good picture no matter WHAT you do. We drove back that night and got Felix out of the cage. He sniffed around, sniffed the carrier, scratched at it, looked at us. Was he smelling Gonzo and wondering where he was? Could he smell death? Did he understand any part of what was happening? Can a ferret feel loss?

We have no idea. But we can feel it.