longshanks raze i guess i must have had "braveheart" on the brain when he first started coming around last january. he had these strange slashes around his eyes. two tilted brows nature penciled in. most squirrels lose a bit of fur at some point. it's a fungal thing. whatever he lost, it came back as something white and hard. more like scar tissue than hair. when it was finished filling in, it almost covered his whole head. so i called him longshanks. hammer of the scots. he was a benevolent king. not like what you see in the movie. he never bothered anyone who didn't trouble him. after a six-month absence, he became a ride or die regular. i never figured him for someone who would let me feed him in close quarters. one day he just started throwing himself at me, laying both of his hands on one of mine. and that was that. he hurt one of his feet early in the week. i'm not sure how. he could still get around well enough, but he was limping. on friday he climbed on top of my slipper and ate there for a while. only one of my four-legged kindred_spirits has ever done that. it was their way of saying goodbye. i wanted to believe it was different this time. but he must have known he didn't have much time left. this afternoon he lost his footing on his way up a tree across_the_street. he made sounds i've never heard come out of any animal. my best guess is he wasn't able to brace his body for the fall. a bad landing. insides broken beyond repair. he had a hard time climbing over the curb and back onto the grass. he wasn't moving when i got to him. he let me pet him. i tried to get him to eat something. he wasn't hungry. he gathered the last of his strength and ran off somewhere my eyes couldn't follow. ten minutes later he was in the driveway beside a small sea of green. three of his brethren were screaming in the tree he'd fallen from. begging for help or warning predators away. i don't know how he dragged himself over there or why he chose the cold pavement for his deathbed. he hung on for about an hour. his last living act was to reach out like he was trying to touch me one more time. then he rolled onto his side and died. now the throne is empty and his crown is in the ground. 240317 ... epitome of incomprehensibility I'm sorry to hear about this, raze. He sounded like a brave and companionable squirrel. I think it takes a special kind of person to find connection in animals that are often overlooked, that blend into the background, and your writing about squirrels makes me notice them more (one in the backyard last fall was the Squirrel With Pants, maybe the effect of new fur growing in a different colour). Anyway, what I meant to say is that I think the connection part is good. But then it's also heart-wrenching when that connection is broken. 240317 ... raze that's really kind of you to say. and it is a bit of a double-edged sword. they live such short lives. so if you form bonds with them, you're kind of doomed to be heartbroken when you lose them before you're ready to let go. in some ways it's less painful when they just stop showing up. but then you don't get to have any closure. if i could do it all over again, i think i would choose to know them anyway, despite the sadness of having to bury so many friends, both figuratively and literally. some of them have hearts and personalities that are so much bigger than their bodies. and there aren't words good enough to capture how it feels when something so small and fragile and wild decides to trust you so completely. but man ... it gets rough sometimes. i understand why people who keep rats as pets get to the point where they can't do it anymore. they just don't live long enough. 240318 ... warmthofrelease Have had these types of discussions with animal lovers before. Most notably in my mind with ex-coworker who I will always be in love with, who was making an attempt to catch and neuter feral cats. She was having a hard time dealing with the emotional toll of a feral having a litter only for the infants to die in the winter unsheltered. And she also spoke on her experience with her own cats, quality of life, letting go, those sorts of things. I told her that the lesson that pets teach us is that it's still worth it to love something even if you're going to eventually lose it. Because you'll lose everything anyway eventually. So choose to love and to feel the sanctuary of connection and the knife of loss, and to do it all over again. I also told her this was just an opinion not a fact. She said it was an opinion that she appreciated. She kept her composure but I'd like to think she fell in love with me too in that moment. Or at least realized I was special. I didn't tell her that sanctuary stab analogy that was elevator wit, well in hindsight. But I could still tell in that moment I reached her. But everyone grieves in their own way. Maybe for some people it is too hard to take. If you come to the conclusion honestly that it really is better to have never loved than to have loved and lost, then you're right. Because that's a decision you have to make for yourself. All we can do is lend, to a griever. Lend perspective. Lend sympathy. Lend our time. But ultimately you have to do this on your own. I'm sorry. Godspeed. 240318 ... raze thank you, from my heart. i'm with you ― the joy that comes from loving and being loved by another living thing, whoever or whatever they may be, is always worth the pain that comes when that connection is severed. oddly enough, i think another period film that shuns historical accuracy in favour of cinematic sweep is applicable here. i sometimes think of a scene from "rob roy" in which a woman who's carrying the child of someone who feels nothing for her (or anyone, really) confesses her shame to rob's wife. she admits she still loves the man who threw her away like a piece of wet trash. "isn't that a sin?" she says. "no," the other woman says. "love is never a sin. only the lack of it." 240318 ... releaseofwarmth Agreed. But that unrequited shit really does hurt though. That's what's nice about allowing yourself to be owned by a non human creature. You're much less likely to be disowned. Until death do you part, of course. 240318 what's it to you? who go blather from