It turned out 14 of us wanted the five that were there, and so we put names in a hat and I got to pick first. And it was me! The very first baby gerbil was mine. I had a cage with a wheel and an upside down water bottle for him, with cedar shavings to play in and hamster food.
I took my gerbil home the very first night and when we came back the next morning to class, the mother gerbil had eaten all the rest of the babies. That’s what the teacher told us, and the other kids cried and generally flipped out about it, but that’s nature for you.
No one’s parents got called, no grief counselors, nothing. It was just one of those “oh, well” situations kids were expected to roll with back then. If it happened today there’d be some hell of an outcry. Lawsuits. Channel 7’s Help Me Howard. It’d be an ongoing drama, but not in 1967 when I was seven.
I named my gerbil Becky after my best friend, Becky Hayes, and she was very gentle with her bites. I gave her a lot of love and care in return. She wasn’t a cuddler, but I loved her. We all did.
But after two years she died.
The day she died, I felt it hard because I hadn’t gone through anything dying before. But the pain was tempered by the fact that she never really warmed up to humans, me included. I was always wary of her, too, because I knew what she was capable of doing.
I mean, the moms eat the babies.
I brought her into Mom and Dad’s bedroom the morning she turned up stiff. There was no thinking, “There’s something wrong with the gerbil.” I knew the score.
Mom saw it in my hand and said, “Uh-oh. Bill?”
Then Daddy said, “Come here, doll.” He kind of poked her, then he took her from me and looked at her teeth, for some reason. He said, “Welp. Yep. She’s gone.” Then he looked at me and back at the gerbil then back at me. I started getting borderline weepy, where the tears hang there but don’t come down.
Becky got lost in the house the week before and Ann said, “What if she gets into the baby food? Or my shoes? Or eats rat poison? These are all things rodents do, Janie, so you’d better find it.”
Dad said, “Well, you better tell Laura to look out for her. If she doesn’t know it’s a pet she’s liable to throw it in the chili and feed it to y‘all for lunch..” Laura was our maid from Phenix City, across the Alabama line.
Richard said, “I think I saw her do that last week.”
We found her by following the trail of turds that led behind the refrigerator, but I was afraid she had eaten poison while she was loose. There’s no way Mom would leave poison around with all those children and toddlers, but kids worry like that.
So it was guilt tears, too. Just then, Dad got teary eyed, too, and said, “She was a fine gerbil and a faithful pet. She served with honor. I guess we need to give her a decent funeral.” I nodded and then Mom and Dad each gave me hugs and Ann handed me aluminum foil, a plastic baggy and a paper towel wad.
Then Ann said, “God would probably want you to do all that stuff on the back porch. Because it’s Sunday.” Mom agreed so I put Becky’s body in a watch box out back. After breakfast and KP chores, we got the casket and went by station wagon to Rigdon Field where Rich played Little League.
It was me, Dad and Nancy in the funeral procession. We went into the woods behind the snack stand to find a peaceful place.
Mom gave us cut lilies from her garden and Mrs. Cox gave us two red roses with the thorns broken off; one for each year Becky lived with us. We got a cross made out of popsicle sticks and glue from Ann and Mom. And at the gravesite Dad said the speech about how there is a season, turn, turn, turn. And more about how we stand before our maker and Becky could be proud.
Then Dad brought out a folding GI spade shaped like a snake’s head and dug a hole in the muddy clay. We buried her there and we all said things we liked about her. Then we sang “Amazing Grace” but just the first part. No sense over-doing it.
On the way back, we went to Circle Grocery and Dad got me five Big Buddy bubble gum whips. Each one was a full foot long. Laid end to end they were taller than me.
No wonder I always suspected I was his favorite.
