If you have known me for very long, you'll know that I'm not always crazy about animals. I've probably eaten more dogs than I've petted, and I just plain don't get along with cats. I'm not a "pet guy." It's not my style.
About 4 years ago I became friends with my buddy Dave. He's the one who got me started playing bass and whatnot. Anyway, Dave had a pet tortoise named The Swashbuckler. I immediately took a liking to the guy and decided that someday I would own a tortoise of my own.
Fast forward a couple years and I'm starting to like Megan again. One time when I dropped by her house, I noticed she had a tortoise. If something bad about a potential girlfriend can be called a deal breaker, something awesome like owning a tortoise could be called a deal maker. It wasn't the most important factor in me finally dating Megan, but I would be lying if I said it wasn't a definite perk. I took to him immediately and was as concerned for him as Megan was, even though he wasn't technically "mine" at the time.
I have grown to love turbo over the past year or so. I was the one who started saying, "He has the heart of a champion." I said it at first as sort of joke when we saw him struggling to climb over his house. But as time has proven, Turbo really did have the heart of a champion.
He was small for his age and he always seemed to be getting sick. Megan and I have nursed him back to health on several occasions. I don't think I've ever been as excited to watch an animal eat as I have been with Turbo. Eating meant he was getting the nutrients his little body needed, so it was always relieving to see him crunch into his lettuce (even though he always had pretty poor depth perception and often came up with a mouth full of nothing, which was always funny to watch). He ate like a dinosaur (not in quantity, but in the way I'd expect a dinosaur to eat) and it was never dull to watch him.
A few months back, Megan and I were getting increasingly concerned over Turbo's declining health. In our many trips to the reptile store, we would ask them how big a tortoise of Turbo's age should be, and how he should be behaving. We found, much to our disappointment, that he wasn't growing as quickly as he should. He was only about 2 inches across and he should've been 5 or 6 inches. His eating habits were not good enough to maintain his health, and we noticed that his little arms and legs were getting smaller and weaker. He didn't even look as healthy as the hatchlings the reptile store had for sale.
Every day over the past few weeks I would pick Turbo up and get him to move his arms and legs to make sure they wouldn't atrophy. I did everything I could to encourage him to eat and move around, but he seemed to be less and less motivated to do any of these things. Megan and I have often wondered if Turbo has just felt horrible every day of his little life. It could very well be true. He's had a number of health problems and even a trip to the vet and a round of antibiotics didn't seem to give him the help he needed.
Over the past month he was eating maybe only once a week, if that. It was over the past two weeks that he really declined. He didn't eat or move. I couldn't even get him to move his arms and legs without coaxing him first. It was becoming apparent (though I refused to believe it) that his little life might be coming to an end.
Yesterday I got a call from Megan. She told me that he was not responding when she tried to soak him or sun him under the heat lamp. She said he seemed to be near the end. The funny (if you can call it that) thing about tortoises is that it's hard to tell if they're dead. In Turbo's case it seems pretty sure. He has pulled his little arms and legs inside his shell and they have gotten stiff. We can't see any movement from him at all, and we can't coax any out of him.
There has been an air of sadness that has permeated the last couple days. I always knew there was a strong possibility that Turbo might not live out his full age (about 40 years for his species). I didn't think it would come to this so soon. I will miss the little guy. We will surely have other tortoises and they'll probably be a whole lot healthier than Turbo was, but he'll always be my little guy. I didn't ever think I would feel this strongly for a pet of any sort, but I do.
Turbo always brightened my day. There was never a time when seeing him didn't make me just a little bit happier. But I do take comfort in the fact that if he was in pain (as we have every reason to suspect that he was) it is over now and he has lived out the measure of his creation and has gone on to a better place. Megan and I will miss him.
I can think of no better epitaph for him than those words I originally said in jest, but seem to describe him better than any others I could hope to find: He Had the Heart of a Champion.