It's ironic that my last two posts on my LJ blog should be about my chinchillas.  It really is.  And how strange that I should be talking to Mariella about her bunny dying.  It's just strange. 

My baby chinchilla, Joy, died this morning.  She wasn't doing very good last night, but I just didn't think.... I don't know what I thought.  I hoped she would get better.  I petted her last night, held her, not knowing that I would be saying goodbye.  

And it seems so unfair, because all of us agreed that we would gladly have traded all of our other chinchillas just to keep her.  We raised her from birth, getting up every two hours in the middle of the night to feed her.  And she loved us.  Whenever we walked by her cage she would sit in the corner, begging us to hold her, and whenever we would pick her up she would cuddle up in our hands and squeak in protest whenever we tried to put her back.  And if one of us was holding her and another family member walked by, she would perk up and want to sniff their mouth to say hello.  We would all stand in a circle, and she would hop from one person to another, crawling all over our hands and our shoulders.  She always thought she was human. 

Dad found her this morning before any of the rest of us were up, and she had fallen over on her side and tried to get up, but couldn't because she was so weak.  He opened her cage and picked her up.  She sniffed his mouth, and then relaxed.... and died.  I guess she was waiting for one of us to be there, so that she could say goodbye. 

We all cried.  We all loved her equally: she was our baby, our joy.  At times throughout the day I find myself just wanting to hold her and bury my lips in her fur and kiss her, and have her snuggle up and go to sleep.  She was there whenever other bad things happened, but she didn't care: she would just let you hold her and kiss her and cuddle with her like nothing had happened, and just soak in the love.  But now that she's the one that's gone, I'm not quite sure what to do with myself.  So I sit here, writing blog posts until I can't see the screen anymore because of the tears in my eyes. 

I suppose I should stop now: I'll drive myself insane if I keep doing this.