Electra -- sometimes called "Lexie" -- is my aunt, my father's sister. She's really wonderful and very patient and smart. Electra and her husband Uncle Mojo have had many beautiful children. Most of them looked like her (black and white), but quite a few looked like him (Cousin Brigit, for example).

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OBITUARY       It is with great sadness that we announce the death of my beloved Aunt Electra on Thursday night, 3 September 1998, at 11:44 p.m.       From a little speck on a keyboard (right), Electra grew into a fluffy and beautiful female, a wife, many times a mother, and even a grandmother. At the time of her death, Electra's granddaughter Ms. Ganjette was expecting children -- her first great-grandchildren to be born in the hamster community in which she spent her life.       Electra was bought as a fuzzy baby around the first of February 1997 at the Westwood Pet Store in Bethesda, Maryland. She was brought into our home along with my father Ziggy, who is her litter-mate, and another unrelated female hammie, Juliette, who died in November of 1997. Initially, Electra and Juliette were supposed to be a couple, but it turned out both were females. So a short time later, yet another hamster was taken in -- a gentle, easygoing albino male who was found at a pet store in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He became our much-adored Mojo, and he and Electra lived together until just before her death.       Lexie married well, as it turned out. The large and virile Mojo soon become a gentle, devoted father, even going so far as to imitate Electra's closeness to the babies by snatching several of them at a time from the nest and sitting on top of them as Electra did when nursing. This curious behavior amused humans endlessly, but it almost certainly tried Electra's patience. The couple produced several litters of healthy children, some of those litters quite large. Many of their children, some black and white like Mother Electra and others albino like their father, are in homes all over Montgomery County, Maryland.       Only one of Electra's babies lived permanently in the household -- daughter Brigit. Brigit, too, has many children, including who who is still with us -- our dear Ms. Ganjette.       Electra was a lively, cheerful sort who would obsessively start shred up the newspaper lining on the bottom of the cage every time we cleaned her and Mojo's cage -- what a mess! But she knew exactly what she wanted, and always ended up building what turned out to be a soft, cozy nest that she shared with her loving husband.       Shortly before her final illness, Electra began losing weight drastically. To those who handled her, she felt bony and weighed less and less as the days went by. But her brilliant personality and her energy never diminished until the end.       Then suddenly, about a week before her death, Electra started to look and act terribly sick. She was soon removed from the cage she shared with Mojo, and lovingly hand fed and watered until late the night of September 3, when she finally drew her last, tired breath.       From that little speck of black and white fur on the keyboard that weighed barely an ounce and a half, through an adulthood marked by great dignity, Electra was a truly a part of our lives every single day. She was there when we came home all those cold nights. She shared two long glorious summers with us. In good times and when things were hard, Electra was always there -- it seems like there was no "us" without her. Electra is woven into so many memories that she leaves behind an emptiness than cannot possibly be explained. Simply said, we loved her.       Go to God who made you, Electra, knowing that we shall never, ever forget you. Love -- Tripod