In the fall of 1996, when I was 18, I brought home a baby leopard gecko from the pet store.  Over the years I had many pet lizards, and I was looking for a new one.  The store owner suggest the leopard gecko as they were very docile, so I took his advice, bought the two-week old hatchling, and brought it home.  I named her L.

L - approx 1 year old

L was always very easy going.  She was quiet, never bit, and generally took it easy.  One time, in 1999 or so, the bookshelf her home was on fell over while I was gone.  When I got home to my apartment, the tank was on its side, and L was nowhere to be found.  I left her rock cave out on the bathroom floor that night, and the next morning she was sleeping in it! 

It's funny - I never expected to have L for so long.  Before L, my typical reptile experience was that they lived a couple of years at most.  13 years is a long time to have a pet gecko in my experience.  In the time I had L, I lived my entire adult life to date, lived in four homes, started and sold my Internet company, have had my entire career, and met and married my wonderful wife.  As I've often pointed out to Sebastian - my oldest nephew - L was around before HE was.

The last couple of years, it's really stood out how long L has been around.  When I'd go to Petco or PetSmart to buy crickets, the cashiers would often ask what I was buying the crickets for.  When I told them it was for my 13 year old leopard gecko, they often exclaimed that they had a leopard gecko as well, but that they had never had one live nearly that long. 

My favorite photo of L

A little over a week ago, I noticed L was extraordinarily thin.  She ate some crickets and seemed better for a few days, but yesterday she suddenly looked thinner than ever and would only move very slowly.  When I picked her up, she only weakly responded.  She seemed far too weak to catch crickets, so I bought some mealworms which I placed in front of her, but she just laid there.  Later she had crawled into her cave, and later yet she lied outside of it, between the cave and the glass.  And this morning she had crawled into the middle of the tank, and she moved no more.

Kim and I buried L this morning in one of our landscaping beds.

L - you are missed already.  You had far more a presence in my life than I had ever expected.  You were the only lizard that I could ever imagine Kim even liking, much less loving enough to cry over your passing.  You were beautifully colored, quiet, and as the pet store owner (whose store has long since gone out of business, you were around so long) predicted, you were very docile, easy to hold and show friends and family who never looked at or touched a lizard before.

Goodbye buddy.