The back story ...

It's difficult to look back and explain properly because our lives have dramatically changed these past few years. But we weren't a pet-household. No cats, no dogs. Just Morgan and I living a quiet life at home. Morgan was very much art-focused and I was a regular on the nature trails throughout Tampa Bay.

So on that fateful evening when Morgan arrived home with a tiny little furry creature that she had found on the side of the country road, how could we have known the journey we were about to embark on?

We knew he was a possum obviously, but we had little knowledge of what possums really were; how they behaved, what they needed, and most importantly of all, could they even survive in a home setting? As we stood there in the kitchen with the little guy crawling all over her hands, the decision to keep him was easy. From the outset he had his little hands wrapped around our hearts. There was no escape.

Morgan came up with the name Rocko after an animated character that she was a fan of. She had discovered a mother possum that had been run over on the road and all the babies, but he, hadn't survived when she came across them. His tail was damaged and so it was evident even to us novices that his chance of survival in a wild environment was very likely low. So taking him in, meant we were taking him in for life.

But what was life? How long do possums even live? We had no idea.

Trying to figure out what to feed him was really difficult. There were people selling information on the net but neither of us felt comfortable in going a route that involved people trying to make money off unfortunate little creatures. So once kitten milk helped stabilize him and his appetite became more possumish, we went through a number of different attempts at healthy food until eventually settling on a mixed cat-human diet.

Rocko quickly became the child in the family. He had full range within Morgan's room and was often found wandering the living room and kitchen areas in search for some mischief to get into. He was very comfortable being held by Morgan and peripheral vision could have been forgiven for thinking she was carrying a baby around, half the time.

When she would go on boyfriend visits, he would go too. And by all accounts his experience became quite human. He would regularly demolish her bag of cheese puffs when she wasn't looking and was a big fan of McDonald's French fries. Not very healthy, I know, but possums have an amazing sense of finding anything that they can eat. They are not fussy!

When end-of-life happened for Rocko, we were devastated. He contracted a neurological disease from having nursed from his dead mother and when treatment options ran out, helping him go to sleep at the vets was one of the most difficult things we have ever had to do in life. Rocko lived over a year and died on the same day my Dad died. I hope their spirits found each other because they would have made great friends; they were very much alike.

Our good friend Jax, who is actively involved in rescuing wildlife, heard of the loss at the same time as she came across two possum babies in need of rescue. She asked if we could take them in and apply some of the knowledge we had gleaned from raising Rocko into helping these two little unfortunates out. It was a surprisingly tough decision, but once we saw the little guys, we knew we had to step in and give them a chance.

So this is when Sam and Frodo entered our lives. Sam was the girl and Frodo the boy, although when we first got them, we thought they were both boys. Hence the name, I guess.

Sam quickly became queen of our home. She ruled the roost and was an amazingly intelligent and lady-like possum. She house-trained herself to use the upstairs bathroom for all potty purposes. No matter what part of the house she was in, when she heard the call of nature, she was climb up the stairs and do her business right beside the toilet bowl on the floor. So we laid out papers and forever more that is where she would go.

Frodo had a huge interest in Sam and would follow her everywhere but she had no interest in him. His unique little clicking noise would resonate through the house like a radiation detector whenever he would get close to her. And the job of keeping him at bay became one of Morgan's biggest challenges. How do you explain to a romantic little male possum that the object of his desires has no interest in him?

Sam died first and our happy existence came to an abrupt halt. Yes, they had both grown to being "old" in possum years, but when they are only one or two and you have invested your heart and soul into them, death never comes easy. She passed away quietly in her sleep and we buried her in the patch where Rocko had been buried. We played the same sad song as we lowered her into her resting place and heart-heavy we went back in home to the young man who was never to figure out where the love of his life had gone to.

Frodo lived to a ripe old age and by the time he eventually passed, he looked every bit the wise old man. He died with his arm around his favorite stuffed toy and our hearts fell to pieces. He got buried beside his love, Sam, and the same music rang out across the treed gap on the back of our property.

It is difficult to express the loss but we had a distraction of six little babies having just arrived before the loss of Frodo. They had been found and turned in to Care Animal Hospital in Bloomingdale and by now Jax had talked us up as somewhat of possum experts. So, how could we say no?

In the middle of such a sad occasion, they injected life and happiness into our home on a level that we hadn't really seen before. These little guys quickly grew from kitten-milk drinking babies into youthful explorers and our home became a series of obstacles. As walls were built initially to contain them, but then had to become boundaries that separated each of them from each other.

There were four boys and two girls. Although for the longest time, we thought one of the girls was a boy because she was the biggest. That's how a girl ended up with the name Brutus. Lady was the other girl and the four boys were Littlefoot, Trouble, Bitey, and Baby.

As they became adolescent and then adult, the task of keeping them apart became monstrous. The whole house was now divided with unscalable obstacles, designed to keep them at bay from each other. It was divided into sections that were as equal as possible. Lady got the laundry room. Trouble got the kitchen. Littlefoot got one part of the living room and Baby got the other part. Brutus was in Morgan's bedroom, and Bitey was on the upstairs landing immediately outside my bedroom. There was food and mess everywhere, but that didn't bother us as much as when one of them would succeed in getting over the wall and then world war three would break out. Boys wanted girls. Girls wanted nothing to do with boys. Girls had no liking for each other, and the boys would seriously attack each other. I remember one pool of blood in my bathroom after Littlefoot got upstairs and attacked Bitey.

And yet, without exception, they were as gentle as anything when they dealt with us. They would climb on us, lick us, and sometimes cuddle up and go to sleep on us. There is no more honest feeling that the love of a possum. No one is asking or expecting it from them, so when they give it, it is unbelievably moving and tender.

Having completely lost control of the house, which was more reminiscent of a war zone than a home, I set about building the refuge outside. I am not a builder by trade so planting posts and building fences was all new to me. But at the end, each possum was given his/her own home, front garden, and a run with a large log to climb and play on. The refuge became about 800 square feet.

By the time I started moving them into their outside homes, they were becoming increasingly older. Not old enough for Brutus to figure out a way to dig under the fence and escape. But one by one the others died and in a relatively short period, all five of the non-escapees were gone.

We buried each beside their siblings and beside Rocko, Sam, and Frodo and each burial was performed with the same music and ceremony until all were gone.

Our emotions were shot, our hearts completely destroyed and to this day we are still not recovered.

One of the problems with experiencing such a deluge of love is that when it is gone, it's absence is enormous. The void it leaves in our hearts is very likely to remain unfilled and the scars on our hearts are quite visible, even from a distance.

So the true back story to this web site is to shine a little light on nine little lives that flooded ours with so much sunshine that we never expected to experience. To a possum, each one delivered a unique little experience and without recounting them here in detail, I can recall some that my life was never expected to experience.

If there is a heaven, then I know that possums occupy space of the highest order; there is no creature that I have ever witnessed that comes as close to purity of soul as a living creature could possibly display.

And if there is one message I could leave in your heart, then it is this: pause when you next see a possum and bear in mind you are witnessing a creature whose destiny is to soar with the angels.