I’m not sure what it is, but we have not had a good week with our small pets. Friday I found one of my 6-year old parakeets (Lucy) belly up in the cage. The night before she was her chipper self, squawking at Ricky, her cage-mate, and munching down birdseed. Then this afternoon my daughter could not find her hamster in its home. It had buried itself with bedding. She took it out and it was barely moving with shallow breathing. Just yesterday Abby, the hamster, was running all over the house in her ball and my daughter was playing with her. There was not much I could do but comfort my daughter as she pet her hamster until it passed away. She was so sad and it broke my heart when she told me that it was her fault her hamster was dying. Through her sobs she said it was because she didn’t love it enough. I tried to explain that that could not be reason and that it was just time and hamsters don’t live long lives and so on, but it was little comfort. She just had to grieve it through. We have buried a few critters over the past few years and it really doesn’t get any easier, but it opens the doors for the death conversation and where we are going when we leave this world. We find comfort in the knowledge that because we have accepted Jesus as our Savior we will all meet again in heaven.