I remember what a candy fend you were, even though you knew as well as we did that it wasn’t good for you, and tried to stick to raisins. But you got that one first taste somewhere, didn’t you, and never looked back. Remember how whenever I was eating something sugary at the computer, you’d climb up the back of the desk, a dozen or more times, trying to get at the candy, and every time I set you on the floor you’d jet right back up. Then there was the time you somehow divined there was a bag of gummy worms on the counter, and climbed up the kitchen chair, on to the table, and jumped to the counter. Quite a ways for little fellow, even if you were big for a ferret -you and Bobby, you guys were HUGE.

But the gummy worms - you grabbed that bag up in your mouth, took a flying leap off the counter -lucky you didn’t break your silly neck - and sprung for the living room. By the time I caught up with you it was too late to see which piece of furniture you’d went under, and by the time I got my brother to help me flip couches you’d had a fine old meal.

If there’s anything sillier than a ferret, it’s a ferret on a sugar high. I‘ve never seen such war dances ;-p.

Maybe it was because you came a few months before Ditsu, and so had to find other non-ferrety playmates, but you were always a Love-Everybody Ferret. Remember how you’d do war dances for me, and play tag and hid-n-go-seek, and recline on a sheet so I could drag you across the kitchen floor on it like it was a sled. Remember how much you loved wrestling with the hand-puppet monkey, when I put it on, and how you’d get the dog to goof around with you, play-bowing and everything, and how, when you nipped the cat to try to get her to pay attention to you, she’d howl and retreat to top of the TV and GLARE down at you.

You were so social and sweet, and one could always tell you loved me as much as I loved you. You were my first baby, and the fulfillment of a dream I’d had since the first time I ever saw a ferret, years and years before I had enough money to take you home.

Please take care of Bobby and Ditsu for me. I love you all.

I’ve already wrote a bit of a novel here, so I’ll try to keep this short, but you were a sweet thing. The way you’d take raises from my hand, and sleep in my shirt pocket for hours and hours during class, and stuffed your cheeks so full of bedding that the teacher and the rest of the Small Animal Science class couldn’t believe it, and took a picture. That picture is still in the class’s scrap book I think, which makes it the only pic that lived through the fire.

You made a legacy for your self, Bear, putting that bedding in your cheeks like that, and students are going to laugh at that picture for years and years to come.

This is a thought that makes me happy, that the beloved that brought me so much joy, will still make other people happy, even now that they’re gone.