A Sad Goodbye

Alex had a very sad life lesson to learn this weekend. His beloved pet hamster died while he was at school on Friday.

If you know Alex, you know that he does not really ask for much in life, but several years ago he was adamant that he was getting a hamster for Christmas. At the time, I cringed at the thought of caring for another pet in our house. However he spent the entire months leading up to Christmas asking for a hamster, naming the hamster, and telling everyone that he met that Santa would bring him a hamster. This was the first time that he REALLY wanted something, so of course Santa brought him a hamster on Christmas morning.

Alex learned a lot of responsibility in caring for Laia. He was the one that was responsible for feeding her and cleaning her cage. We all grew to love her and her silly antics. We never knew that a hamster could be so smart. She would find clever ways to escape from her cage and roam during the night. By morning she would be back in her nest along with the little "treasures" that she collected during the night. Sometimes Alex would find Laia climbing on him in the night, and when we put her cage in the bathtub at night to keep her from roaming, she turned the water to a slow, steady drip! We have more stories to tell about this hamster than you can imagine.

When Laia became sick several weeks ago, we were all pretty upset. We thought she wouldn't make it through the night and Alex went to bed teary-eyed. Even though she got better, Laia never fully recovered, and Thursday night she was barely breathing.

Sometime during the day on Friday, Alex's little friend died. When Mike came home from work, he and Alex put her in a shoebox and buried her in the backyard. My heart broke for Alex as I watched him coming up from the backyard with a shovel and tears rolling down his cheeks. He came into the house and curled up in a ball on my bed. Together, we held each other and talked about all of the good times and funny stories that Laia gave us.

Today, when the weather was finally sunny, he sat in the driveway and mixed cement in a bucket to pour into a stepping stone. He used pieces of broken glass to make a heart and stamped her name and the word "love" into the cement as it dried. When the cement sets, he will put it in the backyard to mark her grave.



Thankfully, Mike has been working for some time now to refinish a desk to put into Alex's room, and Mike was able to put the final coat of sealer on it this weekend. The table that once held Laia's cage has been replaced with an antique desk. Still, Alex says that his room feels empty without Laia. I know that this is a life lesson for Alex, but watching my little boy learn and grow up is not always easy.