From a letter:

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 12:22:53 -0500

He was two years old, and his ears were filthy although they had just been washed three weeks before.

He loved to play chase, and to try to tackle; he'd come flying through the air to be caught in mid-flight and snatched up and hugged.

He didn't much care to play ball, but when he caught his tennis ball he would lie on his back and roll the ball in the air with his feet like a little circus bear.

He sat perched like a vulture at the bend in the stairs, peering down around the edge of the curtain hanging there.

He cuddled and explored ears and hair and tried to crawl down the back of the person holding him.

He came home because even as a baby, squirm as he might he never tried to bite.

He would climb on my desk, and would scale the blinds on the window to the very top. He wasn't allowed to do either, though.

He would grasp a finger in his teeth and try to drag the person attached under the couch or into his play tubes to hide them, waddling backwards as fast as he could.

He liked to dig in the food and splash in the water bowls and tear through stolen bags of dried beans.

He once stole an umbrella and somehow dragged it up into his cage and hid it behind the bed on the third story. He loved umbrellas, and bungee cords, and tiny packages of Kleenex.

He couldn't recover from double adrenal surgery, and died Friday afternoon from an Addisonian crisis.

It feels like I could have just dreamed him.

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