And then there were none.

September 9, 2003 Lady and I lost Silk, one of our two beloved ferrets, to insulinoma.  On January 29, 2004 Fagan passed away, also from insulinoma.

Silk and Fagan are the first and only pets that Lady and I have together as a couple.  Those two critters were showered with the love and affection that only we, the two obsessives, could lavish upon a pair of spoiled rotten weasels.

Fagan survived her sister by five months, and was by all outward appearances a happy and healthy fur-ball.  She showed few, if any, signs of the creeping sluggishness that Silk exhibited toward then end.

She was playful, bright eyed, and had put back on a little bit of weight although she had always been slim and trim her entire life.  In the absence of her little ferret sister she would mountain-climb her way up onto the bed and sleep with her big ferret parents most every night, usually either curled into a little furry doughnut nestled into the crook of my left arm, or between Lady and I — a third spoon in the drawer.  You wouldn’t believe how much heat a 2½-pound ferret can generate.  She was a little burning ember.

On Thursday, January 29th when Lady went to give Fagan her morning medication she found her unresponsive and whining softly to herself in her cage.  Fagan was in the throes of a seizure brought on by low blood sugar.  One of the horrible things about insulinoma is that it’s so hard to regulate in an animal the size of a ferret, and the animal can’t tell you when they are starting to feel bad.  You medicate them on a schedule and keep a sharp eye out for a few telltale symptoms, which sometimes never surface before a crash like this.  Fagan had had two previous seizures — out of the clear blue sky.  No warning.  You’d see her playing, and then an hour later she’d be completely immobile and unresponsive to any stimulus.

Lady rushed her to the vet and they immediately started to work with her.  In addition to being near comatose, Fagan had dehydrated and the Vet was attempting to re-hydrate to be able to take a blood sample.  Several hours later, we received the call.  Fagan had died while the Vet was examining her.  She had never regained consciousness, and her poor body just gave out.  The last seizure had done extensive damage to her brain, and she just turned off like a light switch.

That night we went home and packaged everything ferret away before our brains could quite get a grasp on the fact that she was gone.  We went to dinner and surrounded ourselves with a few friends.  We spent this past weekend in the company of more good friends to distract ourselves.  The fact remained that our bedroom — the defacto domain of the ferrets, which they had graciously let Lady and I sleep in, was terribly empty.  We keep catching ourselves in old habits — like remembering to get the medicine ready when we get home from work, or having a split-second of panic when seeing the bedroom door open because Fagan might get out.

Maybe I’m just a stupid 30-something jackass with a pussified attachment to animals, or possible I’m just a hardened, cynical exterior balanced by a softhearted core.  Either way losing Silk, and then the loss of Fagan has ripped me asunder as sure as if they were members of my human family or Family.  When you spend every day of eight years living with and loving a pair of adorable critters, you have a tendency to miss them terribly when they’re gone.

Fagan Noir Matherne has joined her sister on the far side of the rainbow bridge, and now plays for eternity with all beloved pets that have gone before her.  I love you, my little Fagan-ella, my little firebrand.  Try not to run Silk out of the hammock too often.  You take another tiny nibble of my heart with you as you go.