16 Oct 2007 09:00 AM

The Adventures Of Gleti

Part II

Writen By Ammey

About a week ago, I realized that the prior two nights had been fairly quiet, meaning I had not been hearing the bone crunching gnawing of plastic by Gleti. It is the most irritating sound of plastic slowly being chewed away by a clever and borderline Obsessive Compulsive teddy bear hamster in his Habitrail. Which is why I realized I hadn't heard it in two nights. When you have to try to ignore that sound to fall asleep at night, trust me when I say that it is the kind of noise you notice being absent. And if you know anything aboout hamsters, then you are aware that they are the little escape artists of the world. Knowing that was the most likely reason for the newly quiet nights, I began to feel a knot growing in the pit of my stomach. I asked Mikel if he would check Gletis cage and when he did, sure enough, there was no Gleti. He was free at last. He has finally chewed himself free yet sadly, I feared this was probably going to be the harbinger of his demise.

Mikel & I immediately began the search for Gleti. With thoughts racing through my head about how I was going to deliver the bad news to Kaine, I had a challenging time figuring out where to even look for him. I decided that when I picked up the kids from school, I would tell Kaineand teh employ them all to search for him as soon as we got home.

Kaine took the news ok at first but after looking for more than 30 minutes unsuccessfully, the reality of the situation began to set in. Gleti had escaped 4 times before, but we live in a bigger house now making the posibilities endless. Our minds were full of questions. Could he make it down the stairs into the garage? How long had he been roaming free?  Kaine became very distraught and tearful. Whie he sobbed he kept crying out "You were like a brother to me, why did you have to leave me?" I had no good answer to offer.

Khy, Lilli & I kept searching and we tried to console Kaine as best as we could. To be honest though, we were all sad and worried about the little guy. We knew that if we couldn't find him, he would not survive without food and especially water. Seeing Kaine so upset made me realize how attached we had all become to this tiny mammal.

Days passed and the grim reality that we would probably never see Gleti again, had already settled in our hearts. Kaine had even courageously written a narrative for school about his experience. The morning after Gleti ran away, Kaine, in his usual uncanny 40 year old manner of speaking, declared to his dad that Gleti was probably in Arkansas by now and that he just wants him to be happy.

A true testament to the resiliency of children, with or without special needs. I must confess that I wasn't really ready to let him go so soon.

All of us have had super vivid dreams about Gleti, so maybe he is still chewing somewhere in the garage, wall or? Maybe his tiny animal spirit is still with us. I would like to think so.

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