Strange Sorrow

One of my guinea pigs died last night. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but she wasn't eating well, and sometimes guinea pigs can develop serious problems if they lose their appetites. Or she could have had a problem that caused her anorexia and led to more problems. I didn't even realize that something was wrong until the situation was dire. And now her cagemate is ill, too.

Her name was Panda. She was the most adorable little black and white smooth-haired piggy I'd seen. I thought of lots of names for her but when I came up with Panda it was just too perfect. Panda was a very neat piggy, and kind of fussy, and very, very shy with people. She also squealed louder than anything whenever she heard the rustling of the bag that held her parsley, or for that matter, any bag rustling at all. She was less a companion for me than she was for my one-eyed piggy Pickle, and I'm afraid that even if he gets through all this mess Pickle will be heartbroken to have to live without her.

I'm sad that she is gone, and sadder still because in retrospect I think that I may have missed important signs that she was ill. Pet health is not just my responsibility in my home, but it is also my job, so I'm doubly hard on myself here. More than anything, though, I'm really sad because I can only find one picture of her. I lost most of my pictures when I fried my old desktop computer over a year ago, and it looks like I didn't take any new pictures of Panda since then.

I just took for granted that she would be here for a while longer.

-C.