Goodbye Waffles

 It's with great sadness that i sit here and write that Waffles the hamster has passed... never in my life would i have thought that i'd be so attached to a rodent but Waffles was no ordinary rodent, she was a hamster par excellence... much like my beloved Syd, Waffles had a way of making me smile. I was always amused watching her scurrying to and fro, loading her cheeks with food or bedding or both and marveling at how she did it. 

Waffles was an Xmas gift for my boy Disaster, he had been asking about getting a hamster mainly due to an old web site he had played when he was in pre-school, a site called ABC Mouse, on it you completed lessons and were given credits to buy stuff from the virtual store. Disaster bought two virtual hamsters one of which he named Waffles so it was only fitting that he name his real hamster the same. Since we had a hamster and i have a curious mind i began investigating the life of hamsters... yes it sounds odd but then again maybe i'm a bit odd but the more i hung out with Waffles the more i wanted to learn. I soon discovered that hamsters do in fact learn their names and each time i'd go into Disaster's room i'd say Waffles, in my usual goofy way, and sure enough she'd peak out her little house before having a stretch and walking out to get her treat. 

Waffles was also known as the adventure hamster as on a few occasions Disaster forgot to close her cage lid and Waffles would somehow climb up and out, drop off the table and then head out for a walkabout. I found her once at the bottom of the steps surrounded by cats who seemed mildly frightened by her and once i found her in a vent, most likely having found the loose vent cover in the BW's room and falling down it and making her way to the bottom floor and into the air return register. It was roughly 3am and the cats were staring at the vent and so i walked over and shined a light and sure enough there was Waffles staring at me, standing on her back legs and asking, how the hell did i get in here. I then found a screwdriver and loosened the vent, got her out and took her back to her cage where i made sure to shut the lid. She was an excellent climber and often found a way to scale her playpen i put her in when i cleaned her cage, an activity she was never happy with as she like her cage as messy as possible. 

If there was one thing i truly enjoyed it was watching Waffles eat her treats. She had different ways, sometimes jamming the whole thing in her mouth and sometimes holding it with her front paws while nibbling away at it, which was one of my favorite things to watch. I'd listen to her faint nibbling as she enjoyed her treat, her favorite being the blueberry treats where she'd munch on the outside before getting the center. It never failed to make my grin and we'd sit there staring at each other and when she was finished she'd come to the edge of her cage looking for more. Truth is i probably gave her too many but she was hard to resist when she stood up and tilted her little hamster head. 

The night she passed i got a frantic text from the BW, i was going to attend the I-mac's game (long story) when she told me Waffles appeared to be having seizures. I took off from the game and drove home to first check on my boy Disaster and then tend to Waffles. On researching even more i found that this wasn't an uncommon occurrence and that it usually meant the end was near. I stroked her head and said her name but it seemed that would make it worse and that if no one talked to her she'd calm down and relax. I did it one last time and then wrapped her in a blanket and covered the cage with a towel so that it was dark and peaceful. I listened from the other room and didn't her any seizures, an awful sound that Disaster couldn't bear to hear and i closed the door and let her be. In the morning i went in to check and she was gone. The plan was if she was still alive to take her to the vet and have her put down so that she wouldn't suffer anymore. To say i was fucking distraught in my inability to help her would be and understatement. I wanted to help her and wanted Disaster to be okay and know she wasn't suffering but all home remedies were brutal and horrible. There was no way i could do it. The ER Vet was nixed by the BW as too costly and so i did the best i could. 

In the morning after checking on her i asked Disaster if he wanted to say goodbye. He said no and that he was okay. The boy is getting much better and dealing with loss. He's a lot like his old man and sometimes that worries me, i wanted him to talk about it if he needed to but i also understand him and so i let him be. If he wanted to he could talk to me and he knew it. He wanted her to be taken to be cremated because he said if i buried her in the backyard it would be weird. In the end we didn't cremate her and i did bury her in the backyard. Just me and her. I dug a hole, and laid her gently in still wrapped in her blanket. I put a piece of honeysuckle in with her and then i gave a speech to the trees, the birds, the squirrels and whoever else may have been listening. I told Waffles that Disaster and i loved her very much and that i hope she had a good life, how i never knew hamsters could be so cool and that i'm glad i had a chance to know her. I wiped at my eyes and then put the dirt back, i couldn't look until i knew she was out of sight and then i placed a large stone in the spot where she was to keep anything from getting to her. I know she's there and say hi to her each morning. 

In the end she lived a normal hamster life, their life expectancy being about 18 months Waffles was around 2 when she passed. She was a cool little hamster and i'll miss talking with her and watching her do her hamster things. In the past month or so i knew she seemed to be slowing down and could tell some things might be wrong and even though i sorta prepared myself and Disaster for what was coming it's still never easy... And so i say goodbye sweet Waffles, you were a fine and beautiful hamster and you will be missed and remembered. You taught me that my capacity to love was greater than i thought... and how cool is that for a hamster. Go easy little Waffles, love Disaster and his dad.  (I thought of including Michael Jackson's song Ben, as it's one of the few if only song written to rodent but i decided against it... though i still might at some point.)