The weekend before Halloween was an event at the Latimer House on Victorian Mourning that myself and two other girls had been working on for months. Friday the 26th of October came around and we were bustling around the mansion in anticipation and some amount of concern over the approaching Hurricane Irene that was supposed to be effecting the weather that night and the rest of the weekend. Despite the rain, Friday night ran smoothly and we had a decent turnout for out event. At one point, I went outside to talk to Colleen on the porch when we all heard what sounded like a shriek and a squeak all at one time. It was followed by a group of young men walking in front of the house stopping and one of them stating "Dude, you stepped on a baby squirrel." At that, I ran out into the rain and dark only to find a small pathetic and extremely frightened baby squirrel no more than 5 weeks old shivering on the wet pavement. I immediately scooped him up, ignoring the warnings statements of danger of rabies around me, and took him inside (note: rodents are incapable of having rabies. Other diseases, yes, but that is not one of them). I found a cardboard box and some old dish towls and placed him inside to get warm. From the second I saw him frozen on the ground, that squirrel had my heart and I named him Empie, after one of the last members of the Latimer family to live in this mansion.
I was hesitant to put much hope into him lasting the night but immediately went to Wal-Mart and got kitten formula powder, a small hamster cage, and some blankets. Believe it or not, this was not my first squirrel. Eric had brought home a squirrel named Nuts about 7 years ago that we had taken care of but he had had a seizure and passed away. So every 3 to 4 hours, I fed that squirrel with a syringe, so diligently that he was brought to both work and church in the beginning of our time together so as to stay on his feeding schedule. As the weeks went by, he grew and grew and so did our love for each other. I became, in almost every respect, his mother, and he knew it.
He began to escape his cage and go looking around the house for me when I left. In fact, when he moved to a bigger cage, it was almost impossible to keep him contained in it since he would creep out and begin his search for Mom. When he couldnt find me, he inevitibly would return to the stack of his own personal blankets on top of his cage and snuggle down and wait for my return. Even when he was moved outside during the day so he could adapt to the outside, this is what he continued to do. When I was around, he was on me or Eric....constantly. I would cook dinner with a squirrel crawling from my shoulder to my back to my leg and then up to my head and so forth. When I ate breakfast, I did so one handed because my other hand was occupied in squirrel wrestling which he never tired of. When I sat on the couch, he would sit on me or run the length of it, terrorizing the cats as he did so. The cats never knew what to make of him because while intrigued by this small creature, they also knew of my attachment to it, and therefore, left him alone.
The beginning of this week, Empie started acting more reserved and not his typical wiggly, squirrelish self. He was no longer escaping his confines and looking for me. He did not run up and down my person as he usually did. I assumed he had a spill while outside during the day and was taking it easy, so I gave him some TLC, extra cuddle time and thought he would return to his usual self once he healed. Thursday night I held him in a blanket and snuggled him while sorting through the kids Christmas presents. At midnight I gave him kisses, told him I loved him and placed him in the nest he made out of a blanket. Yesterday morning, Eric awoke and found him still and cold, looking as if he was still dreaming. We are having him creamated and a pawprint made of my amazing little friend. Yes, he was a squirrel, but everyone that spent time with him adored him. He was the sweetest and most wonderful squirrel I have ever known and my heart aches because of the huge void that has been left in my life by this tiny creature who in such a short time, became such a large part of it. Rest in Peace Empie, my sweet angel squirrel.
