Shoebox Destiny

Tragedy woke me up this morning. A little girl’s guinea pig was being eaten by the neighbor’s dog.

The downstairs neighbor had left for a trip to California and we, the people upstairs, inherited caring for the dog into the New Year. Dad had that perplexing dilemma of wanting to state, “I told you so,” because he had noticed that the dog was eyeing the guinea pig earlier and had warned his daughter to keep her pet in its cage. That reality was something left for us adults to talk about a bit around the corner.

Word got out, cell phones and text messages. A shoebox was converted from art supplies storage into a burial container. Plans for a funeral were in the works.

When mom came home she took her daughter somewhere private and they grieved. Dad awkwardly followed behind, he is an electrical engineer and this was a guinea pig, he is much more comfortable with the square root of pi and explaining its use rather than defining metaphysics and a pet.

Big brother and I took the dog for a walk. After all, the dog still needed to stretch its legs and find a place to do its duty. I needed a cigar. In the mean time, the little girl played Legos Batman while waiting for her brother to come back and dig a hole.

Then we stood around a hole in the backyard, at the base of a tree, sharing particular moments out of Guinea Pig’s life.

Guinea pig had an amazing life. When he entered our world he would make the most horrible screams whenever anyone wanted to pick him up. He soon got use to being petted, pampered, and primped by mother, daughter, and a collection of neighborhood friends. He would almost purr when given a bath and being submitted to a blow dryer. He ate wonderful salads and spoiled with snacks. He was not the kind of pet who ran to greet you at the door when you came home, he would just sit there and stay put on the floor if you took him out of his cage, but he was loved and it was certain that he learned to love us too.