In May 2012, at the age of 25, I decided to co-parent a hamster with my housemate. Broke and depressed and partying too hard, we were in desperate need of an emotional support animal, with a hamster seeming the most financially viable and responsible option.
Bringing our new arrival back on the bus from the pet store, excitement soon turned to panic when she began frantically gnawing her way out of the flimsy cardboard carrier. No one noticed except a woman and her young daughter sitting opposite us, who watched wide-eyed as I pressed the box against my chest, blocking the ever-multiplying holes with credit cards, a bag of tobacco and sweaty palms. In a desperate attempt to help, the lady offered us her tote bag before realising it wasn’t really something she could sacrifice, seeing as it contained all her belongings. We only just made it home in time to prevent an escape, but this unfortunate incident inspired her name – Lucy Fur. Yes, lovingly named after Beelzebub himself.
Despite the traumatic start, Lucy turned out to be an angel. She kept me company when I was housebound with a broken leg, and was someone to talk to (or at) during lonely days working from home. Antidepressants had stunted my range of emotions, but watching her hold vegetables in her tiny paws made my frigid heart swell. Our penchant for bringing the party home every weekend suited our nocturnal friend well, as she rolled around our feet in her ball into the wee hours, before being plucked out of her cage to soothe our wretched hangovers the next day.
I once came home late from a work event to discover Lucy had escaped, and vowed not to sleep until I had found her. Thankfully, I soon spotted her sitting under the coffee table that her cage sat on, her pouches bulging with scraps she had found on the kitchen floor. I like to think she was waiting for someone to put her back home, choosing to believe it was love, not Stockholm Syndrome.
Hamsters have short lives though, and the following September we were devastated to find Lucy dead, just 16 months after we got her. Living in a flat with no garden, we waited for night to fall before jumping over the fence into the park to dig her grave using a wooden spoon, making sure it was in a spot we could see from our bedroom windows.
I wish we’d had longer together but I will always be grateful for her existence; I needed something to look after, to prioritise above myself and get me out of my head. She may not have cured my depression, but she was a wonderful distraction from the darkness. I guess we’ll never know if we did the same for her; hamsters are notoriously hard to read.
