She came to us in summertime, begging for peanuts whenever we sat outside on the veranda. This squirrel was chubby—no, she was rotund. She was irresistible when she sat up with her pudgy front paws clasped across her chest, begging for a peanut, apple slice, or blueberry. Someone had obviously been feeding her before she discovered our wildlife sanctuary, but once she found us, she came to visit every day. I named her Turnup because of her cute turned-up nose, and Walter named her Turnip because she was as round as the vegetable.

As summer turned to winter, Turnup became comfortable with us, taking peanuts from our fingers and running up to us the minute we stepped outside. With cooler weather, she discovered that we spent our mornings sitting at the dining room table drinking coffee rather than spending time outside on the patio. She would jump up on the windowsill and look at us inside the warm house. She wanted peanuts. If I was washing dishes at the kitchen sink, she would jump on that windowsill and stare at me until I fed her. She became our morning delight.

One day, I was telling my neighbor across the street about Turnup, and she knew the squirrel I was talking about! She agreed it was the chubbiest squirrel she’d ever seen and told me Turnup would peek in her windows too. That squirrel made the rounds, begging at every house on the block.

When springtime came, Turnup was still our best morning friend, but she looked like she was losing weight. It wasn’t that we weren’t feeding her. She had lost her spunk and stayed closer to home. We watched with distress when she was not her perky self.

On a sunny morning, Turnup came to see us but did not beg for peanuts. She had lost a lot of weight and was listless and stayed close to our feet as we sat in our rocking chairs on the veranda. We gave her water, and she let us pet her head until she crawled away. When my yard man came to mow the grass that day, I told him to watch for a sick squirrel, and he spotted her under a bush on the side of the house. Once the lawn mower was gone, we coaxed Turnup out from under the bush, but she slowly walked toward the forest, never to be seen again.

We were heartbroken when we lost Turnup, but the photographs we took of her now bring us happy memories. Her Christmas portrait at the top of this blog, peeking in the dining room window on a cold December day, is my favorite.