geoff

Our friend Heidi was working at the zoo in Prospect Park when we met her about 4-5 years ago and she gave us a guinea pig she had rescued. She said it was fairly common for the zookeepers to find abandoned small animals - the owners obviously assuming that this was a kind of nunery for orphaned pets. The reality was that many of the animals were a burden and the official policy was to eventually euthanize them. There was a well-established underground railroad of protection against this, however, and Heidi snuck Geoff out prior to his execution and was keeping him in her apartment in the city. She even faked his death certificate to show her boss before filing. She gave it to us when we adopted Geoff. It looks like a library card with date of abandonment, various shots and updates, and one final 'check-out.'

We noticed that geoff was dying on new years day. It wasn't entirely unexpected, since we'd had him as an adult for about 4 years and his life span was about 5 yrs. But it happened quickly. I was building shelving in the front yard and so quickly built a box with hennie, while we tried to discuss it with Hennie. The death took hours with Hennie holding Geoff on a towel and offering lettuce & carrots and asking questions we answered awkwardly. Luckily she wasn't too upset; more curious. Mostly because she really did not understand and thought Geoff was in some kind of temporary alternative place I think. A place with invisible guinea pigs.

We added the lettuce & carrot, and Hennie, without prompting, went and got him a toy.

They both drew on the "house".

We dug a hole in the backyard flowerbed for the grave. Hennie has periodically asked a lot of questions about when Geoff was coming back, and where he was, and seemed to grow more suspicious about the realistic potential of the invisible guinea pigs' ability to actually find him in the box in the backyard. Especially since we hid it underground. Naturally, nothing has been easily explained to her satisfaction, but she's seemed to grow to accept it or to think about it less often.