Rounding out Heaven

Fiorella's heavenly addenda include finding everything of hers she has lost or that someone has taken from her or destroyed, like that autograph book her Brownie mates signed before she left Ohio, her painting of Grendal she took to school in the twelfth grade, her grandmother's and great-grandmother's engagement rings, the ceramic she molded of a beloved guinea pig.

And Fio wants to reunite with her parents (although her father will probably be playing golf with Gabriel and the guys) and to visit with friends and family who have preceded her.  And she wants to cuddle her first baby, the one who was never born, the one for whom she still mourns.  And she wants to see all her dogs--Tina, Freelove, Sandy, Blackie, Hugo, Bella, Wendy, and, when her time comes, sweet Sonia. Heaven wouldn't be heaven without dogs.

Albert

During his brief year and a half with us, Albert the Guinea pig captured every corner of our hearts as we watched him grow from a tiny squeaking fluff ball to a rather majestic adult boar. We taught him to sit up and beg for food, to trumpet a loud warning when he needed off our laps, and to stop whatever he was doing and clear out of wherever he was when a powerful "No!" reverberated across the room.

But Albert fell ill one day and nothing we could do seemed to help. Finally Fiorella lined a wicken-woven baset with soft towels and took Albert to the vet. That gentleman seemed fascinated by his tiny patient and, divining Albert's obviously important position in our household, put his whole heart into his task, pumping his patient full of antibiotiocs and appetite stimulators.

Nonetheless, Albert died soon thereafter. However, he made his everlasting impression on it at least one part of the world. When we received the vet's bill, Fio noticed that under the title "breed of animal" the vet's receptionist had carefully printed A-L-B-E-R-T.