Sweet Marie

200 years from now, if there is an archaeological dig on our property, I feel so sorry for those who do the digging. They will wonder what kind of family lived here. They are sure to think we were odd animal worshipers. Why, because of the amount of, and different types of animals they will find buried. We have a zoo of bones buried. Heck, we have even ran out of space on our nearly 5 acres to find a clean, UN-used grave space. I guess we are really rough on pets. I know of 3 cats, two dogs (one not even ours), a flock of chickens, several hamsters, a cockatiel, a frog, a snake, and several fish. I guess the learning curve with pets is pretty broad around here.





When our son was about 3, I decided he needed a pet of his very own to help care for. I wasn't silly enough to think a child that age could care for one all by himself, but it also gave me an excuse to use with my husband to add a new pet to our menagerie.


We go to the pet store and I help him pick out this precious little dwarf hamster. We had an unused aquarium at home to house him in, so I didn't have to buy the cage or anything. It was a very inexpensive pet and oh so sweet.


He loved this tiny little hamster and named her Marie, from one of the characters of "The Aristocats", his favorite movie at the time. We placed her aquarium in his toy room on a little table. That was the worst mistake. He could easily reach into the tank and take her out by herself. He would pull her out and kiss on her, and pet her. He SO loved this little critter and I would lecture him constantly that he shouldn't take her out of her cage by himself. This was mistake #2. Actually believing that my precious child would listen to me and mind what I said. WRONG! I was a reasonably new mom and still experiencing this euphoria of being a mommy and having my perfect little family.


One morning, he came carrying Marie into the living room in his little hand and said "Marie just died this morning!" I said the expected "What?" and go take the little critter out of his palm. Still warm, but totally lifeless. She had passed to the great hamster wheel in the sky. I got the story from him. He said "I was giving her hugs and I think I loved her too much". We buried her under the willow tree, and I placed a cardboard tombstone on her little grave with the following epitaph:

"Here lies sweet Marie

The prettiest hamster that ever could be.

But now we're sad, our life's been marred

Because our sweet son

Squeezed her too hard."

Now see, I thought this was a humorous way of dealing with the situation. My husband found no humor in it. He just knew this was the first signs our son would be a future serial killer. Don't worry. Ten years later, he is very compassionate toward the furry critters, but to his sister? Not so much.