You just never know.

One minute everything is business as usual and the next you find yourself face to face with a most unexpected surprise. If lately your life has seemed a bit humdrum and you think nothing can shock you - come sit by me.

Have I got a story for you.

Yesterday evening after the usual routine of a summer day, my children were all busy doing what they usually do and I walked into the kitchen to put away the last of the supper dishes when I spied a black sock on the floor next to my desk. Initially, I wondered who would be wearing black socks on a 95 degree summer day, as I walked over to pick it up.

Then it moved.

Let me tell you, if you ever want to master the art of levitation, the key is to unexpectedly come across a live animal in your kitchen. As I came off the ground, I let out what can only be termed as a bloodcurdling scream and the furry thing began frantically running in circles around the kitchen floor. My children all came running to see what all the commotion was about and promptly jumped up on the kitchen chairs, now screaming louder than I was. “It’s a rat!” they screamed as I blindly searched for something to either catch it or beat it off with as mass hysteria hit an all time high. I could not, for the life of me, imagine how a rat the size of a large baked potato got into our house. We have a cat and a dog, for Pete’s sake, who were laying right there by the door!

In the midst of pandemonium, my oldest daughter yelled “It can’t be a rat - it doesn’t have a tail!” The creature stopped moving for a moment and seemed to be taking stock of it’s surroundings as we all ceased from screaming long enough to stop and stare.

In what I can only describe as stupefied curiosity, I inched my way closer to it holding a large box in front of me as my only shield in a woman against nature confrontation. I was trying to gage it’s reaction, much as one would approach a rattlesnake or, yeah, I admit it, the bubonic plague.

The closer I got, it suddenly dawned on me that this creature was vaguely familiar. In a moment of utter bewilderment, I turned to my daughters and said (okay, yelled) “Oh my gosh, its Hammie!”

What you don’t know and we had forgotten is that a year ago we had a baby hamster named Hamlet that went AWOL one day. We’d not seen him again, except for a brief moment a few days later when he suddenly appeared from under the stove long enough to run off with a dog treat that was as big as he was. Which, at the time, was the size of one of those bite size candy bars. We looked for him for a week, finally resigning ourselves to the fact that a) The cat got him or b) He had made his way to the great outdoors (although, I must admit, I was pretty sure it was a).

So now, realizing that this was not a gnarly rat, but, in fact, our long lost pet, we all calmed down a bit, and after some careful maneuvering, got him in the box and transferred him to his old cage. For the longest time we all stood there staring at this bizarre apparition, completely at a loss for what to say. First of all, he was now the biggest hamster any of us have ever seen, so he’d obviously been eating well and second, where the holy heck had he been this whole time?

The more we looked at him, the more bewildered we became. There were so many unanswered questions and frankly, none of us were sure how to feel about this sudden reappearance. It’s unsettling, to say the least. While I may not be the best housekeeper in the world, I surely would have noticed a large black furry thing at some point, or at least some kind of telltale evidence that one had been lurking around, but there hadn’t been any.

He appears to have had some kind of stroke, which makes him lean to one side, and which, according to the vet, signals he’s near the end of his lifespan, but he has survived on his own all this time and grown to epic proportions. As he lay exhausted in his cage, he was oddly calm, like he had finally made it through a long journey and I couldn’t help but wonder why he had suddenly decided to make an appearance after all this time and what he wanted from us now.

Here’s what I think:

“What a piece of work is man!” (Hamlet, Act II, Scene II).

While many stories have an unhappy ending, once in a while, someone really does beat the odds. Completely unbenownst to anyone (including our dog and cat), our little hamster had not only survived, but thrived. That fact alone still boggles my mind. My very favorite people have stories just like Hamlet’s. I hope to someday follow in their footsteps.

“That it should come to this!” (Hamlet, Act I, Scene II).

Just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Truly amazing things are going on all the time. We just can’t see them. We are taught from birth that “seeing is believing.” But I’m one of those crazy people who think that “believing is seeing.” It’s called faith. We could all use a little more of that.

To be or not to be, that is the question.” (Hamlet, Act III, Scene I).

I find it interesting that he came back now. We are moving in a couple weeks and would never have guessed he was still here. To me, it just goes to show that even the most insignificant creatures need someone to see them, if only to say “I was here. I lived.”

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.” (Hamlet, Act II, Scene II).

Expect the unexpected. Or better yet, be the unexpected. My mother told me once about a day when she decided to go see my biological father, out of the blue. He hadn’t seen her in about 25 years, so her sudden visit must have thrown him for quite a loop. He was drunk (as usual) and I can only imagine what was going through his head when she appeared at his door. His initial response was “Are you going to hit me?” To which, she laughed and said, “No. I just wanted to tell you that you did something good in your life. . . Your daughter.” That was it. She just wanted to him to know. Now that was unexpected. And unforgettable. At least is was to me.(Thanks, Mom).

So much of life is boring and there are times when the unexpected can be a good thing. Like a compliment given from a sincere heart and show tunes sung loudly at bedtime. Like calling up an old friend just to say you were thinking of them and showing up at your child’s school unannounced to take them to a movie. Like finding money in the pocket of an old coat and wearing groucho glasses… to the grocery store. Like forgiving someone before they forgive you and getting a refund you didn’t know you had coming. Like being someone else’s biggest fan and giving more than expected without wanting anything in return. Like holding hands – with everyone. Or playing “ding dong ditch” with your kids on a cold winter night.(Not that I would ever do that. No sir, not me, officer).

As I write this, Hammie is fading fast. The vet says there’s nothing we can do for him except keep him comfortable, so we have. As I watch him and wonder what he might be thinking, one thing is abundantly clear. He may have come back to say goodbye, but what he really wanted in the end was for us to know that he had lived.

It just goes to show – you never know.

Thanks, Hammie.