That Time I Cried on My Birthday

You’re entitled to your opinion. You could think I’m ridiculously lame. I’m okay with that. You may try to blame it on pregnancy hormones, but you’d be wrong. You might just think I’m unstable for being so attached to something so small. Maybe I am. But caring a year-and-a-half for a helpless little creature did something to me. I desperately wanted her to live, which is why when on my birthday—after getting home from Thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s house—I sank to the floor and sobbed.

You see, Jerimiah and I came home to a half-lidded, open-mouthed, rigor-mortised Pascal. Happy birthday to me.

She had been pretty sick for a while and we knew she might not make it—even after our friends came over the night before and played reptile veterinarian. But the glare she had given us Thanksgiving morning was imperceptibly more spirited. So we hoped. Too bad it didn’t work out that way.

I couldn’t bear the thought of her still being alive and trying to claw her way out of the cardboard Snickers Protein Bar casket, so we made sure she was truly gone before tucking her stiff little body into the box. A somber, shovel-clad procession made its way in the dark to the cold woods beyond the back fence. All I could think was, “she would hate this sun-deprived spot.” But it was a fitting resting place considering she seemed to hate everything.

Since her house was housed in my home office, I can’t go into the room without missing her fiercely. I catch myself throwing glances in the direction her cage used to be, hoping to be met with her adorable piercing stare. Unfortunately, my desk lacks Pascal’s pithy personality. To spare you more melancholy, I’ll leave you with some of my favorite pics of the very personality I’m bereft of right now.

Goodbye little P.

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Posted in Inner Monologue and tagged chameleon, Cirque du Pascal, dying, Pascal, pets. on December 3, 2013.