Lucky.

I don't feel like talking about my actual life. Plus, maybe somebody will get something out of this little story. Either way, I think it needs to be told. It's the amazing life of one little hamster.

Lucky was born one of two runts in my sister's second batch of hamsters. See, originally there weren't supposed to be any hamster babies because the pet store told my parents that both hamsters were male. Well, sometime after Christmas, when there was a new litter of pink wiggly things in the cage, we figured out that atleast one had to be female. (Thus the entrance of Squeak and Master Chief). Anyway, the first batch was given away quite easily. My sister loved breeding them, and she did a really good job so my mom said she'd let the hamster have one more litter. We put mom and dad together again and in a few days...twelve new disgusting hamster babies.

Twelve is a lot for any mother to handle, this hamster mom was no exception. She ate a couple, bringing her total down to eight. Then there were two runts. We knew she was going to turn her focus on them soon, as she was still pretty frustrated with the work motherhood involved. Sam (my sister) wanted to wait a couple days to find out the sex of the little runts so that she could divide them properly. (There are now two hamster rooms to avoid anymore litters, boys and girls.) Anyway, the mom couldn't wait and ate one of the runts before we could save him. The other Sam was pretty sure was a boy so she snatched him up and put him in the cage with his dad and brothers.

He was the most adorable hamster ever. Out of all the babies, he was definitely my favorite. He remained about half the size of his brothers and sisters. He was light blonde with big black eyes. Actually, for the longest time one of his eyes wouldn't open, and we called him Squints. But now he has two big, beautiful eyes.

Anyway, because he was so cute and so tiny, I picked him up all the time. I would put him in my coat pocket and walk around my parents house with him because he would just fall asleep in there, and I thought that was pretty freaking adorable. So one day, I took him out to show my parents and for whatever reason, when I got to the kitchen, little Squints took a flying leap out of my hands straight down to the hard wood floor. He landed with a "Splat!" that will forever remain in my mind. I immediately screamed "Oh no!" and scooped him up. He wasn't moving. I burst into tears and held on to him. My sister, who had also just lost her bird, came in and asked what happened. "I'm so sorry!" I wailed. "He just jumped right out of my hands." She took him from me and I continued to cry (don't laugh, he was so tiny and plus I'm hormonal).

"He's moving!" Sam said.
"Don't lie!" I said, opening her hand. Sure enough though, he had begun to stand up. In a couple of minutes he was starting to walk around slowly and soon we saw that no damage had been done, except for a little loss of wind from the fall. Thank God.

From then on, his name was Lucky. He lived happily for a while in the house with his father and brother. He was kind of a loner, and for a few weeks whenever we passed by his cage we'd pick him up just to make sure he was alive. One day, on her way down the hall, my mom made one of those very stops at the boys cage. Lucky was on top of one of the toys, definitely alive and awake but strangely not moving. She reached in to pick him up, but when she pulled on him, he wouldn't budge and he began to bite her furiously. She realized that his foot was stuck somehow in the hamster toy.

She pulled both Lucky and the toy out of the cage and gently worked to get him free. Once free, it was obvious that his little leg had been broken. We were sure, after everything he'd been through, that this was finally the end of the road for poor Lucky. He walked around dragging his leg as if nothing were wrong with him, but we were sure that if he didn't die from the wound, then the other hamsters would surely kill him.

Days passed. Lucky's leg eventually fell off and he was left with a stub yet he hobbled around as quick as the rest of them. The other hamsters didn't even seem to notice he was handicapped. By this time, Lucky was just part of the family. There was no way we could give this little one away (not that anyone else wanted a handicapped runt). We had fallen in love.

Unfortunately, the hard times were not over for poor Lucky. He was now a mature age, though he still looked like a little baby. Sam started to notice that the father hamster now paid quite a bit of attention to Lucky, which was strange because he was a loner...and because he was supposed to be a male. Fearing that she'd made a mistake, Sam removed Lucky from the males cage and put "him" in with the females.

A couple days later, Lucky had babies of his/her own. Now she lives in her very own brand new cage with her babies. She seems to be doing very well, taking care of her in-bred bastard children, and of course we wish her the very best.

Poor Lucky. Born a runt, unwanted by her own mother. Nearly killed by a fatal fall in her childhood. Lost her leg as a teenager, mistaken for a male by her family and finally raped and impregnated by her father as a young...woman. This is tragic enough to be one of Oprah's books of the month.

I guess if Lucky can push on through every day life, the rest of us have no excuse. Of course, I'm not sure if I'm kidding or not when I say that. She is just a hamster, after all. I am a firm believer that God uses the little things in life, and Lucky is one of the smallest so maybe we should take a page from her book. Either way, that is the story of Lucky.

Take it as you will.