A rainbow hermie on the rainbow bridge

Where to post about the loss of your beloved pet hermit crabs. Replies are not permitted in this forum; please PM a member with your condolences for his or her loss.
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A rainbow hermie on the rainbow bridge

Post by Guest » Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:56 pm

My big Diogène waited for compagny for weeks. Finally, a cute little Pythagore and a brightfully colored Pygmalion joined him. The trio hung together only one week...Pygmalion was shy in front of people, but adventurous when he was on his own. One night, at my student's, (I'll call her "M") he climbed out of the tank and took a walk in the house. When my student's mother came in the bathroom, she realized there was one crab missing. Everybody went out of bed to search for him. They found him downstairs, hiden in his broken shell. "M" called me the day after and tried to tell me but she couldn't get to the point, telling only that a shell had been broken. She bring the tank at school the next monday, pretending Pygmalion changed his shell to the broken one. The poor hermie survived almost a week in this shell.When I realized that he was really going to die, I asked "J", the girl that kept him and Pythagore during their isolation, how Pygmalion was doing then. Everything was fine: shy but active. Then I remembered the call "M" made about the broken shell... so I asked her in private to tell me the truth, telling her that I wouldn't be angry about her but I needed to know why Pygmalion was dying. She started to cry and told me...The morning after, Pygmalion was dead. His smell let no doubt. Before I told the sad news to all my students, I had to talk about it with "M". I felt so much for this little girl, keeping this hard secret, feeling the shame, the guilt, the fear to be rejected by all her class because of an accident that occured while she was asleep... I didn't want her to feel this pain every time we would talk about Pygmalion. I asked her to let the students know the truth, and to let them know also how much she cared about our hermies and how much she was so desesperatly sorry about what happened, and afraid of everyone's reaction. She accepted with courage, asking me to talk for her because she couldn't.So I told the students... They were sad, of course, but so gentle for their friend crying on her desk. They told her not to feel guilty, that it could have happened to anyone, it wasn't her fault... Then, I gave to every student a purple piece of paper to write a little Goodbye message to Pygmalion. He was already in a purple gift bag and I put the messages into the bag too. Back home, I put the bag in our outdoor fireplace and lit the fire. I stared at the flames for minutes, sitting sadly in the snow...

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