A Difficult Week

 

In God’s sovereignty, I wrote about my adjustment to seeing animals die a week ago and the reminder of Christ’s shed blood for me. Since then, He has brought the theme a little closer to home.

On February 12th, one of our neighbors gave us a cute puppy that was very young. We were hesitant to accept her, but the kids loved her so much and Abigail quickly took over ownership. Julia already had Osito the monkey and Nathanael cared for Snowflake the dog. We landed on the name Glover because of her white front paws.

We were wary of caring for such a newborn pup, but the mother had abandoned them, so we gave it a go. Abigail had to get up in the middle of the night to feed her. It was a tiring job. On the night of the 17th I heard her whimpering in the middle of the night like I had other nights, but I didn’t bother to get up to make sure Abby attended to her. She was dead in the morning.

We were all very sad. Mistake #2 was letting the kids bury her in the back patio. By the 22nd, there was a foul smell in the house and it was clear that the dog was the source. Glover had to be exhumed, and placed in the trash outside. That was adding insult to injury and we were all very tired that night.

It rained cats and dogs, or maybe monkeys and dogs would be a more appropriate saying for us here. It was after 2am in the morning. What followed was something like a nightmare, and I woke Crystal up to show her Osito dying. It is a memory that is etched in my brain for life. It would be cathartic to write all of the details of what happened, but we decided not to share the how part with Julia and promised her not to tell another living soul either until we decide to first share it with her. In other words, like the now old military policy “don’t ask, don’t tell”.

I decided to wake Julia up and we took her into our room with a candle lit and prayed before I broke the news to her. Her heart was broken as ours was too. We all cried and hugged and talked for a long time. Ultimately, it was a very bonding experience. We discussed trying to bury him or putting him in the trash, but left it up to her. She very maturely agreed to let him go out in the same trash pile that Glover was in too; wrapped in a special blanket.

The last two photos we have of Osito are from Chloe’s birthday. Fittingly, they are with Julia holding her.

What a depressing post right? We are still recovering from the double whammy, and call it a rebound purchase or whatever you like, but we have two new monkeys! Glover was cute, but we only had her for days. Osito meant a lot more to us and won’t easily be forgotten. These new monkeys won’t replace him, but they do ease the kids’ pain and are a lot of fun.

Without further ado…introducing Ginger and Eleanor.

Ginger is Julia’s new monkey. You can find out more about her species at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peruvian_Night_Monkey.

Eleanor is Abby’s new monkey (Chloe gets to help too). You can find out more about her at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_squirrel_monkey.

I am sure there will be more pictures and/or stories to come about Ginger and Eleanor, but I better close because Ginger (the nocturnal one) keeps jumping on the computer!