If I could get another chance
Another walk, another dance with him
I’d play a song that would never, ever end
How I’d love, love, love to dance with my father again

Googling the few lines I remembered, I found out that the song was “Dance with My Father Again” by a certain Tamyra Gray. Clicked Limewire. Searched. Downloaded. In a few minutes I had the song looped in iTunes.

It probably goes without saying that there was a lot of tears involved while this was happening. Being alone in the condo/apartment which I just recently moved in to (will blog more about this in a bit), it was easier to just cry that time (than hold back), get it over and done with, and be ready to smile again for when my Mom and kuya picked me up.

Father’s Day has passed again. I didn’t anticipate that I would be sentimental about it, but just like last year, there was this inevitable longing to have someone to hug and say, “Happy Father’s Day, Daddy, I love you” to. The traditional Father’s Day tribute at church had once again made me hide my swollen eyes under my sunglasses.

There’s not a day that I don’t miss Daddy, and there are moments, such as celebrating Father’s Day, and hearing songs such as “Dance with my Father Again”, when the pain of (physically) losing him just tugs deep into my heart again. And I’m little by little learning to accept that this is how it’s going to be the rest of my life.

(Following Liz’s lead, however late.) Here’s for you, Dad. :)

Also, my one wish, encapsulated in the few lines of this song: “If I could steal one final glance, One final step, one final dance with him, I’d play a song that would never, ever end, How I’d love, love, love to dance with my father again..”

Dance with my Father Again sung by Tamyra Gray

Six months after his partner, Chichi, died, Chuchu passed away too. :(

More pictures HERE.

But at least I didn’t cry like before. I guess it’s mostly because I wasn’t there when my Mom and my brother found him dead. If I was there, there would have been a flood of tears.

He was still magulo last Monday, when I was home in Caloocan for the weekend. That was the last time I saw him. :( Sigh. Chuchu was a survivor. He was able to survive having bitten in the left leg by a house rat. He was always jumpy and energetic, even with a deformed leg, and even when his partner-in-crime Chichi passed away. I guess that’s one of the things I will always remember about him. Inspite of everything, he never failed to make me smile.

It doesn’t feel too long ago when I first got the hamsters, when I had to take them to my niece’s debut. Dad was still alive at that time, and was really amused as well. 10 months, gone in blink. Sigh.

I feel sad, but it was a good 10 months for Chuchu and me. I don’t think I’ll be buying a new set of hamsters anytime soon. But when I’m ready, or perhaps when I found the perfect pair, I will.

Today, when I got home, I found Chichi dead. :( Immediately, tears started falling from my eyes. I went away, called Mom and asked her if she could check on her to make sure — I didn’t have the courage to hold her cold and dead body. :( Mom said Chichi didn’t have any wounds, nor was there any trace that she was attacked. She just.. died.

As Mom took her out of the cage, I sat on the couch, holding the other hamster, Chuchu, on one hand, texting Jayvee with the other hand to tell him the news (we always shared this love for our pets), and silently wiping my tears away.

I think, though, that I am quite an improvement now compared with my hysterics when Chuchu was attacked by a giant house rat. I have this certain emotional attachment to my pets, one I can’t describe with words. But I guess I’m beginning to learn that while it’s okay to cry, crying does not change the situation, it’s merely a way of releasing what’s inside so that you have more room to breathe, and more space to fill with strength so that you can face the music gracefully and move on.

I’m sad. But I know this, too, shall pass.

It was a difficult decision to part with them, since I’ve gotten used to having them in the apartment and being able to feed them and play with them after work. But since I’ve been spending more time in Caloocan the past few days, I decided to leave the hamsters in my Mom’s care (which turned out good because Mom’s so aliw naman of them.) Sorry kiddos, mommy has to work for your future. You have to stay with Grandmom for the meantime. :P

I wonder what they’re doing now. Sleeping probably. Or rattling their cage because they can’t sleep. Oddly, it has become a hobby of mine to take pictures of them in their most candid sleeping positions.

At one point, while in the car, Chuchu fell asleep on my hand, and I was able to preserve the moment in pixels. So cute. :) Chichi loves squeezing herself in the tube with her head in the opening, while Chu wants it inside the wheel. These creatures are most adorable when they’re asleep!! (Er, don’t we all? :P Hehe.)

Hay. Can’t wait to be with them na. More so, I can’t wait for this week to be over. :(

Is that normal? I was told that they were only 2 weeks old when I got them from the pet shop, so that makes them less than 2 months old right now. When do hamsters learn humping on each other anyway? Are they just playing, or is there really a chance for Chichi to get pregnant at this early stage of her life? I noticed too that they’re not fighting that much anymore, unlike before. But they’re still babies! Aren’t they too young for um, hamster sex? :(

The hamsters, exhausted from all the humping :P

I don’t think I’m ready to become a grandmom just yet. Grr.

As for the weirdest things I’ve ever done, bringing two restless hamsters (caged in a huge bright green plastic thingy) to a semi-formal event has definitely climbed the charts.

Fortunately, the debut’s motif was green, and I happened to be wearing green, and the hamster cage was green too. So I guess we pretty much blended with the decorations, and the table cloths, and the balloons, and the debutante’s gown.

I hid the hamsters under the table during the program, as kids would swarm around the hamster cage everytime they catch a glimpse of it. Of course I didn’t want the friggin hamsters to take the limelight away from Eunice, the debutante, who was really stunning that night, by the way.

When the party was over, though, it was the hamster’s turn to party.

Not like I want to, but I can see it now: Chichi will soon accuse me of favoritism coz lately, I always choose to play with Chuchu. Chichi (the girl) is just too giddy and jumpy to handle! And she peed on my hand once too! But of course I equally love them (sabay bawi? haha). It’s just that Chuchu’s just way more cooperative these days. Besides, I’d love to take pictures of the hamsters without worrying about one of them jumping off the edge of a table (which Chichi does all the time, grrr!), or biting my fingertips when I try to position them for a good angle.

Good thing Chu didn’t attack the poor cake. :P
Gaaaah. So hard to take this shot.

Chuchu posing with the souvenirs.

That’s the debutante’s family at the back. :P
And up front, their special guests. :D

Hamster Luuuv ♥

It’s great to find more and more hamster lovers online. A week ago, there was Hamsterster. Now, Gail’s hamster blog. I like! :) I’d love to create a separate blog for hamsters too, but for now, a category (Hamster Chronicles) will do. Right.

I contemplated on it for a while–for a looong while, actually. It started back when I was still working with these girls, back when they couldn’t stop talking about their hamsters and I could only look at their pictures enviously! So for a time, I was weighing the pros and the cons (you know how obssessive-compulsive I can be sometimes), thinking if it’s an investment worth making, or if I have time to feed them and play with them and take care of them, or if I’m ready to be emotionally attached again (LOL. Seriously, I cried for nights when my first hamster died!). But just like many other impulsive decisions I’ve made in the past, my contemplation turned out to be a waste of time, because the moment I laid eyes on the hammies, logic was the last thing I could think of and all I wanted was to take them home with me.

Consequently, I bought the hammies at a time when my eyes were all strained from the glare of the computer, and my head’s all stressed out from all the overanalyses I’ve been doing the past few days. (In short, when thinking rationally was the last thing I could do). The only concern I could think of at that time was if I should buy just one hamster instead of two. After asking some experts (LOL), I learned that hamsters, too, might become depressed, and I didn’t want that for my babies so I had to buy him/her someone to share his/her world with (in the form of a plastic hamster cage worth almost 2000php! Grr).

Meet my hammies, Chichi and Chuchu.
(Chi’s the brown-ish one, and Chu’s the grey-ish other).

Here I go again. While more responsibilities is supposedly not an option for me right now, I found a stress-reliever in the form of another responsibility. Don’t you just love ironies? c”,)

View their Hamsterster account here and here. (Lemme just say, I was just curious at first if somebody already thought of making a social networking site for hamsters, after all, dogs have dogster, and friends have, well, friendster. So I keyed in “hamsterster” and lo and behold, there is. Crazyweird.) More pictures here.