Our fur friend's timely departure

The evening before the twins were born, I discovered my pet ferret, Lars, had died in his sleep.  As sad as I was to lose my fur friend, I can't imagine a better way or a more appropriate time for him to have left us.  Lars was 8 and a half years old, "a venerable age for a ferret", as my uncle put it.  He was my first real pet after leaving home (excepting some dorm room hermit crabs), adopted during my senior year of college.  In his lifetime, I had adopted and lost 2 other ferrets and a cat but Lars had outlived them all.  He has been the one constant in my life through the countless apartments and 3 houses I've lived in, through numerous relationships, 4 different jobs, and 2 states.  Lars had already been with me 5 years when I met my husband.  Suffice to say, Lars was very special to me.

Lars began to develop signs of declining health a couple of years ago, but was still happy and comfortable, if a little slower.  But more recently, his health seemed to be declining further and Lee and I were struggling to know what to do about it.  Trying to find the right balance between maintaining his comfort, keeping him alive and paying for veterinary care was a challenge and a source of much anxiety for me.  And I admit that I was afraid having the twins would make giving Lars the care and attention he needed all the more difficult.  So, discovering that Lars had died in his sleep, seemingly very peacefully, curled up inside of the fuzzy pink sack he so loved, really felt like a gift.  We were saved from a long, drawn-out illness and difficult decisions about when to choose euthanasia, and Lars was saved from being neglected by his people when he would've needed us the most, because we were too overwhelmed by our new family to give him the attention he deserved.

So it was that some six hours before my husband drove me to the hospital for the birth of our twins, he was in the backyard digging a grave for Lars.  The timing was strange but oddly perfect.  Thank you, Lars, for 8 plus years of companionship and thank you for your timely departure.