A Lizard Tale

A crisis of magnificent proportions was averted last night. Whew! I barely survived the stress!

Little Squirt had had a friend over to play in the afternoon, and was quite zealous in showing him his bedroom and Beardie. Later, after dinner, when I went up to the bedroom to feed Rex, I noticed a weird odor. It turned out that Little Squirt had left a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur under the hot bulb on Rex’s terrarium, and the rubber dinosaur was melting. Rex was curled up in the corner of his tank, not looking good at all. Oh no, was he dead?! My heart dropped.

I called Super Hubs to come quickly and help me assess the Beardie. He poked at him gently. Rex opened one eye but wasn’t moving. Usually he runs over excitedly to eat the greens that I prepare for him, and at least watch the crickets jump by. But not last night. He continued to lie curled up in the corner, ignoring all the going’s on around him. This couldn’t be good! Was he slowly dying from the noxious melted dinosaur fumes? He rarely eats the crickets, preferring to stay skinny with the Beverly Hills salad diet. Could he be starving himself to death? Did Beardies develop anorexia nervosa?? My mind raced.

I left Super Hubs upstairs to tend to the Beardie, feeling heartsick. When it comes to pets, my husband and I have particular, unspoken roles. I buy and care for the pets, while he disposes of the dead ones, and finds new homes for the unruly. It works for us. I’m too tenderhearted to deal with dying or wayward creatures.

I went downstairs and prayed for Rex. Prayer is my thing, my gift, my passion. So I prayed Lazarus prayers, that God would raise him up out of his “sick bed.” I didn’t see any reason why God would have a problem with that. This little lizard has slowly won my heart, in curious ways. I pleaded to God for the sake of Little Squirt’s Beardie, as I know how brokenhearted my son would be without his beloved pet. I didn’t even want to imagine telling him.

About fifteen minutes later, Super Hubs called me from upstairs. Rex was totally back to himself! He was happily munching on salad in the corner of his tank, looking fit as a fiddle. Super Hubs thought that maybe he hadn’t been dying after all. He thought perhaps the Beardie had been catching an odd evening nap, or possibly had curled up because he’d been cold.

I don’t know. I prefer to think of Rex as having had a miraculous healing by God. I now look at him with tiny bit of awe, wondering what it’d been like to hang close to the edge of the Other Side. Had he heard harp music, seen a light, been beckoned by an angel? Hmmm. We’ll never know. I’m just so grateful he’s okay. And Little Squirt has no idea of any of the events of the evening. He’d been innocently playing wii in the basement the whole time.