This is going to a be an emotional thread. Fair warning.

Our daughters have had guinea pigs for several years. The original pair were two females, Annabelle and Petunia, and baby guinea pigs are really REALLY adorable. They were a special Christmas gift and really loved.

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The day after their birthday there was a really sad accident where one of the little guinea pigs was injured and didn't survive. Anyone with children knows that these things can happen and they're really horrible with younger kids.

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Fortunately I was able to whisk the unresponsive piggie out of the house and to our vet which was right down the street. They confirmed that the injury was indeed fatal and disposed of the body for us.

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My wife and I scrambled and called around to every pet store in the metro region. Only ONE that was open had any young guinea pigs in stock, so we drove ~30 minutes to that store to bring that one home.

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Again, the original pair were both females. You can probably see where this is going. We brought the new pig home, named it Sunflower, and everything seemed to be OK with both the pigs and our daughters. We were really concerned with the trauma of a beloved small pet's death

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and potential the for our daughter to feel incredibly guilty about the accident. Fortunately, with the cooperation of their older brothers, we made conscious effort to not make our daughter feel horrible about the accident. So... a few months later...

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Our other daughter (they're twins) noticed that there was something very odd in their enclosure and ran to get mom. Mom noticed that there four new baby guinea pigs. Sunflower wasn't a female like the pet store said, he was a male. A large male, at that.

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On my way home I purchased another enclosure so we wouldn't add to the pig totals. Guinea pigs are prolific and birth can actually kill mother piggies and they're fertile almost immediately after giving birth.

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The next order of business was to hurry and find a vet in the metro that could accurately identify the damn gender of the four pig babies. I'm sure you can relate. We got that done after a few weeks when it became possible and the vet confirmed that they were all females.

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So now we had six guinea pigs instead of the two. That was fine, we got used to it, but guinea pigs can suffer from wasting quite easily. There were two separate occasions where I needed to hand feed two piggies with a special liquidified diet via a syringe, nursing them

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back to health. Fortunately, for a time, no more died.

Then two years later, we moved. And shortly after moving, the mom, Annabelle, died. It's crazy for a grown, middle aged man to admit this on Twitter, but I had grown quite attached to her. She was one of the two that

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were prone to wasting and not eating. But she was really beautiful, with long black and white hair and was super friendly. We buried her in the back yard alongside the graves of the previous owners' two dogs, Sadie and Jasper. True story - the previous owners

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Actually had wooden headstones made with their dogs' names on them. Our neighbors confirmed that yes, those were their dogs. I had a grave marker made for Annabelle. Pet deaths and burials are never fun.

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Sunflower lived another year. He was buried right next to Annabelle. Then one of the daughters, Raindrop, died. She was not the runt of the litter but the dominant sister of the litter did pick on her and chase her so she probably had a ton of anxiety for guinea pig. Better

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owners would have split her off with another sister to another cage. We expanded the enclosure to include Sunflower's old space but I don't think it helped. That was a sad moment, too.

Neither Sunflower nor Raindrop have grave markers. I need to fix that. I feel guilty and

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neglectful for not doing it sooner. Fast forward to this past Sunday. One of our daughters had said good night to us and went downstairs, only to return upstairs shortly thereafter. Another guinea pig was dead, Sunflower Jr. She was super cute, half black face half fawn

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with a rosette on her head. That leaves Midnight (the dominant daughter) and Smores.

For some reason the Sunflower Jr.'s death has really affected me. None of the other three were easy, mind you, but this one for some reason represents a new moment in our lives, as she's

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the first that has died during the Covid-19 pandemic. My wife's parents both died earlier this year, during the pandemic, and my wife really wasn't able to say goodbye. She didn't see her father again after visitations were restricted in assisted living facilities.

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These little guinea pigs represent so much and they're not going to be here much longer. Sunflower Jr.s' death has left me very sad and distraught, and while I like and love the guinea pigs, I'm not that weepy. I've cried over the other pigs' dying, but

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today I realized that her death also made me acutely aware of the passing of our daughter's childhood. And that has left me utterly sorrowful.

This pandemic has made me appreciate so much more the small things in my life, all the way to the simple joy of childhood pets.

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I curse COVID-19 and the sadness, suffering, and death it's brought to so many. I also curse those elected officials that have lacked the courage and wisdom to just... make the right choices for the greater good. I curse that we've let our collective care for one another

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become just another pawn in a political game.

But I am glad that COVID-19 might have awakened that collective caring in so many. Re-humanization is possible, in spite of the suffering, in spite of our personal tragedies and sadness, in spite of children growing up. Or maybe

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Re-humanization is possible BECAUSE our children do eventually grow up.

Thanks for reading this far.

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