Your Pet Loss Stories

'Pompom - A Loving Pet'

by Libby McLean
(Sparks, Nevada)

My Mom and I were heading to a pet store. I was so excited! I was around 7 years old. I had just lost a guinea pig named Fluffy. We were getting another one.

When I first picked my little baby Pompom up I was looking at her. She was so cute! She was only two weeks old and was even smaller than my hand. I asked and begged and pleaded with my Mom to see if I could get her. She said yes. We brought my little pig home and put her in her new cage. When we were deciding what to name her I looked closely at her fur. It was kind of poofy... like a cheerleading pompom. That is how she got her name.

Pompom grew quickly. By the time I was ten she was a little bigger than my hand.

I was going to Colorado to visit my Dad. A couple days before we came home my Mom saw that Pompom's little sickness had gotten really bad. She rushed her to the vet. Pompom had to stay overnight so the vet could monitor her. I was so worried and sad that I couldn't be with her when she was so sick. She had trouble breathing and wasn't really herself. When we were coming out of the airplane we headed down to meet our Mom. I was almost yelling when I asked her what the news on Pompom was.

My Mom looked at me and hugged me. She told me that Pompom hadn't made it. I was crying and sobbing so hard that I didn't move for 20 minutes.

Pompom was so special that it made it 10 times harder to lose her. I didn't even get to see her before she went to Guinea Pig Heaven. I still cry when I think about her little white body.

Pet Loss Matters works though. It feels better to talk about it rather than to keep all those feelings bottled up. Anger, sadness, denial. I have felt all of those, and more. This website was a good way for me to really think about how I felt and that Pompom is in a better place now. I would want to have her happy, not suffering.