Triggers and Snakes

[My angel]

I've been blogging about all kinds of losses. This one may seem trivial to most, but it so profoundly rocked my child's world that it shook all of us and brought up all kinds of memories and feelings about loss. I don't think my child ever recovered from losing a beloved baby sister. They were so close that when my baby died a few months after Cedar turned three, Cedar was devastated. Cedar was the first to tell us a sister was coming, the day before we found out we were pregnant and months before we found out for sure we were having a girl. After the baby died, Cedar told us how it happened because Alli came back and told Cedar. It was always clear they had a special bond that transcended the veil. We had not told our three-year-old how the baby had died., but the knowledge was there, as with Alli's coming. Cedar's whole life was about that baby sister, so the loss was devastating. 

[Three-way tummy time--a moment that would never happen again.]

We got a counselor for my kids, but the counselor's full agenda seemed to be ferreting out information against us that DCSF could use to destroy us. That counselor rarely even looked at little Cedar and talked little more to Alexander, mostly banter. And we didn't know how to help Cedar sort through such huge emotions for a little child. Everything I read said little ones bounce back quickly, but it's been 14 years. I don't think Cedar ever bounced, even as the big 18th birthday approaches. Our terrible experience with a counselor meant it took years, until Cedar's middle school years, to seek out another. It helped some but not as much as we'd hoped. The loss of a baby sister formed the foundation for the rest of Cedar's life. I would not doubt that depression, anxiety, and a host of other physical and emotional ailments all relate to that critical event. I'm sure all of those emotions were stirred up and triggered a short time ago when Cedar found out a beloved snake had frozen due to the failing of a breaker. 

[Sweet little boy]

A year ago a little before Christmas, Cedar expressed interest in a banana morph ball python. Cedar has always loved animals, especially baby animals. When Cedar loves is deeply loved, even without outward signs of that. Christmas morning came, and Santa had brought a 3-month-old banana ball. To say Cedar was ecstatic would be an understatement. Cedar had eyes only for that baby and very carefully raised little Sol with care and tenderness, feeding him little frozen rats when none of the rest of us could. With all the knowledge gained from Zoology classes in high school and all the enthusiasm of an aspiring zoologist, Cedar tenderly assembled a bioactive cage. 

[We had a ball]

Fast forward almost a year from that Christmas morning, and Cedar's struggles with school and life crowded out conscientious care of the cage and the snake. The plants failed one after another. The rest of the cage was safe, sealed, and spacious. Sol became a nipper. We're not sure why, but when we put our fingers near the entrance to his hide, he'd snap. Possibly, he thought we were offering a rat. Possibly, he just had a nervous disposition. Still, Cedar faithfully fed him first every week then, after he became a year old, fed him every other week, which seemed to be about as often as he wanted to eat. But it meant that the most attention the snake got was right around feeding time. 

[The culprit: source.]

One night, Sol seemed agitated, moving from one place to another. I figured he was excited feeding time was coming up or that he decided he wanted to explore his cage. A day or so later, Cedar expressed concern over the heater. I mentioned it to my husband, who is usually our tech guy. None of us checked right away, expecting someone else to do it. None of us was unduly concerned. But Cedar checked on him a couple of nights later, and it turned out the breaker had failed, and the snake had gotten too cold. He had died. We all felt bad we had failed him. We all could have paid closer attention to the heater, but no one did because everyone expected someone else to do it or didn't fully grasp the danger. 

[mourning: source]

Cedar was devastated and riddled with guilt to the point that sound sleep didn't happen that night. We all felt tortured, filled with empathy for the snake's last hours and for Cedar. At first, Cedar wanted to wait and work through mourning. Sobs wracked Cedar's frame, though Cedar isn't much of a crier. Mourning and pain are usually felt deeply, under a logical, businesslike exterior. Cedar spent the morning also brainstorming about how to improve conditions and begged us to haul off both snake and cage. Then, in a quick search, I found the perfect snake, an older one that would be more durable than the baby we got a year ago, yet another banana morph python called Minion. When I mentioned him, Cedar expressed hope for the first time since we had discovered the snake the night before. The tears dried up. That didn't mean the tears stopped for good. Cedar has had several bouts of remorse and sadness since. But hope was definitely present. Though my mental health nurse friend said she, herself, would need time to heal, I knew Cedar would do better with this snake. 

[Much bigger boy; source]

My heart dropped when I found out someone else was going to come look at Minion the Banana that night we were looking at snakes, the day after we discovered Sol's loss. I found backup plans in the form of other snakes now that Cedar was eager to try again, but most were either too far, too expensive, too young, or problematic (ate live prey that could harm the snake). We were poised to drive farther to pick up a young snake that ate frozen prey when I got a text that there may still be hope for Minion. After about more than an hour of indecision in Minion's prospective buyer, we got the text we'd been waiting for...Minion was still available. We went to the seller and found that he was an expert breeder with 26 snakes he was paring down. We watched his huge snakes slither through the house and even held an 11-foot giant yellow one. He gave us more techniques to keep Minion safe and offered his services as a resource if we had future questions. It was love at first sight for Cedar. Minion is now happily settled in, and Cedar is fully committed to making sure he's the happiest, safest snake and set an alarm to make sure they spend bonding time daily, so Minion gets to come out of the cage and explore the room. 

[Loss; source]

Loss has been such a part of Cedar's life since near the beginning and runs deeply. Cedar has lost multiple pets over the years. I've been through miscarriage after miscarriage since, which, for my kids, has meant that the kids would get their hopes up for a baby sibling only to have those hopes dashed. That means Cedar endured the loss of hope for another baby sister slowly over the course of multiple years. Caretaking and parental instincts have only strengthened in Cedar. Minion did not replace Sol, but Cedar, I think, sees this as a chance at redemption from mistakes of the past. I'm thankful Cedar gets this opportunity. I know, as with kittens and other pets of the past, I feel like this is my angel Alli fulfilling Cedar's needs, for which I will forever be grateful. 

Strategic Loss

I've been putting off giving away my dog for a year and a half, almost since we bought him.  I love this dog, and this dog loves me.  The problem is he viewed my husband as public enemy number one.   He was a rescue from a family who physically abused him.  The woman who rescued him actually broke a window to pull what she thought was a dead cat from a hot car but which turned out to be an overheated puppy, getting baked in the car. 

This vet tech, who rescued the puppy, carefully chose us from among several others (including one offering $1000, probably with the intent to turn him into a breeder) to be the family to take on this pomchi, Twixie.  I strove to live up to the responsibility.  Except Twixie associated my husband almost from the beginning with his previous owner, the abuser.  My husband simply picking him up turned the phrase "scared the crap out of him" into a literal reality.  Twixie would go nuts barking whenever my husband walked through the door, when Twixie expected my husband to walk through the door, or when my husband so much as twitched, changed positions, or stood up to walk around. 

                                                                 
And we truly tried everything to soften Twixie up.  My husband would give him lots of treats and love.  We tried pheromone emitters plugged into the wall, calming treats, and a tube of pheromones to be rubbed onto his nose.  We tried a Thunder shirt, a vest that is supposed to make a dog feel more relaxed.  We fixed him, thereby devaluing him with the hopes he could stay forever.  None of it changed his violent reaction in the slightest.  I seriously have sunk a small fortune into that little boy, hoping to smooth things over.  No dice.

 

I loved my little Twixie with his big, beautiful smile, his faithful way of following me everywhere, and his glorious, flowing pom tail and rear fur.  But he had started to exhibit behaviors that showed stress, Chihuahua impishness, and feeling overcrowded.  He knew the rules but sneaked away to steal flavors from the litter box, scattered garbage everywhere, pottied in every corner after sitting around outside, doing nothing, and just generally made himself difficult.  All of this was something we could work with.  But what it came down to was my depressive husband couldn't take getting told he wasn't welcome in his own home.  He bore with it for a year and a half and totally left it up to me.  But I finally decided it was time. 

I just hate loss.  I hate having to say goodbye or, worse, not getting to say goodbye because of all I've been through with child loss.  This was one of my furbabies.  And every loss hammers on that tender part of my heart that still aches with separation.  It's not that giving away a dog is comparable to child loss but that every loss compounds the one that came before and brings many of the same emotions to the surface.  We actually prayed about rehoming my little Twixie.  Both my husband and I felt good about the family we found, a waitress with little money who had had lost her Pomeranian babies stolen a couple of years before.  She paid us about the same for him as we had paid for him in the first place, about enough for gas.  At first, Twixie found the separation hard, but the next day, we heard back that he'd taken both the waitress and the uncle she lived with into his heart.  He was doing very well and was not barking at anyone.  He was happy. 

And, meanwhile, we rescued a little girl pom from a backyard breeder.  The little whitish creamish thing smelled of urine and clearly has lived in a cage much of her life.  She doesn't know how to dog.  But she loves everyone and has latched right onto me.  I still sometimes miss my Twixie, but I love my little Snow and know this change was for the best, that we were guided.  Everyone is happier now, including Twixie.  No, it's not loss like child loss, like I said, but it is hard to make a change like this.  I am thankful I did for all of our sakes.