Death is Unfair

Yesterday I had to bury my guinea pigs.

I got a call from my mom right as I was beginning another day at band camp. When she told me that my piggies had died during the night, I couldn't help myself. I bawled. I cried. I couldn't get control of myself, so I went home.

Seeing their little bodies sprawled out in their cage cut my heart in half.

...

I'm crying too hard. I can't see the screen. I'll finish this later.



I was up until an obscene hour last night crying on and off. Jeez, I'm such a wreck. It doesn't help that I'm just emotionally drained from marching band. Normally I come home from marching band, crash on the couch, and watch TV with a piggie. Now I don't know what I'll do.

I thought a lot about her. Her name was Reeses. She was chocolate brown with patches of black and orange, and her hair was swirly. We bought her and her sister, KitKat, in a rural area. The previous owners bred guinea pigs partly for fun, partly for money, and partly by mistake (that's what happens when you put boy and girl guinea pigs in the same cage), and they charged us ten dollars for each of them. They're worth more than a million dollars to me.

On the ride home, my sister and held them in our arms because we didn't have a cage for them yet. She peed on me in the car, all over my shirt and on the seat belt. That was a recurring theme for the four years we owned them. Guinea pigs have very small bladders.

She loved to eat lettuce, and she licked my fingers when she wanted more. When we let them run around in the grass, they ate like lawnmowers and hid in the chives plant. In the winter when it was too cold for them to live outside under our porch, they stayed in my room or in my sister's. When I read books in bed I took one or the other out and let them crawl under the sheets or nibble the pages. Reeses once ate the corner of a library book, plastic cover and all.

We always called them dumb, not to be mean, but they were actually pretty smart. Reeses figured out that if I held out my hand to her, she should climb onto my arm and then she would be brought back to her cage. KitKat learned that if she jumped up on the roof of their little house, we might give her a treat.

They were usually nice to each other, but KitKat made it very apparent that she was in charge. Even though we had two water bottles for them to drink out of, Reeses always let KitKat drink and eat first. When they ran around in the grass, KitKat led the way, and Reeses followed with her nose practically shoved up KitKat's wee bum. Sometimes they fought, as sisters do, and they would nip hair off each other's bums. We affectionately called Reeses "baldy" as she had three or four large bald spots as a result of these little spats. But even so, it was obvious they loved and cared about each other. Even in death they were close, though KitKat had kicked Reeses out of their little house to die.

KitKat always had something to say, but Reeses was content to sit quietly in my lap and resorted to violence (biting me) when she had an opinion to state. She loved being held and stroked, and she purred like a little motor when she was happy.


I don't know if I'll be able to have another piggie. I leave for college in a year, and I probably won't be able to have a pet there. My parents are... reluctant. Piggies are stinky little critters, even if you clean their cage twice a week, and my mom isn't a fan of that.

Death isn't fair. If we had left them under the porch when our lawn got fertilized, KitKat and Reeses would still be alive. It was my sister's month to take care of them, and I want to blame her. I want to blame her so much. But I can't. I wonder, does she think about them as much as I do? Does she cry in the shower, at night, at lunch, in bed, like I do?

We buried them on Friday at 10:15 am in a Boutique shoebox lined with a handtowel we had used when we gave them baths. I pulled their cold, stiff bodies from the cage. It felt wrong. It felt... unnatural. Reeses didn't move, didn't struggle, didn't protest as she usually did. Her eyes were open, her beautiful, melted-chocolate eyes.

My sister put them in the hole my dad dug in the corner of our backyard. I hate that grave. I hate it.

Death isn't fair.

KitKat, Reeses... I love you. I love you so much. I know you're in a better place now, but I wish I could cuddle you one more time, just one more time.

Death

isn't

fair.