That week was able to distract me, more or less, from missing Yarrow, but it wasn’t able to distract me entirely, and now that I’ve been home a week and his remains have been delivered from the crematory service I send all my ratties to, the box is now resting in one of his favourite spots next to my window.

Yarrow was only just over a year old. From the time he was very young I had always noticed that he breathed a little too rapidly, a little too heavily. I knew it was a congenital defect, a growth – something that would never be able to be cured, only handled and maintained until it grew too severe for him to cope with. I hoped that he would be able to live longer than he did, and tried to give him the best life that I could while I had him. When he really began showing signs of distress in the beginning of March of this year, I took him in to verify what I had suspected all along: Yarrow had a massive growth in his lung. The tumour was so large it was literally squeezing the breath out of him; it took up nearly his entire chest cavity and not only inhibited his lungs but pressed against his windpipe. It was only a matter of time before this tumour suffocated him to death.

When I got him, he grew to be a very, very special rat to me. All my rats are special to me, but Yarrow was one of the different ones. He was mischievous and very, very smart, and full of fun. He was a practical joker. He used to play pranks on me all the time; he’d invent games, he’d play tricks on the other rats – and whenever he was up to his shenanigans he’d have an expression on his face that made him look EXACTLY like Harpo Marx. He used to sit and stare at me with that little masked face of his, and as he began to decline his eyes would never leave me. He rarely left my side, because I always knew I wouldnt have much time with him, but toward the end he was literally with me night and day.

The vet was very kind. He gave me steroids to inhibit the growth of the tumour as long as possible. My rat guru gave me a lot of support and advice and wholeheartedly and without hesitation offered to care for him while I was in New York.

The trip to New York was tormenting me. How could I leave him? Even with my rat guru, who knows more about these creatures than any human being I have ever met, it was not the same as me being here. He counted on me; he’d start to panic if I wasn’t around. How could I go off to New York and have a good time just at the time he needed me most? For the first time in my entire life, I hated – really hated – the idea of going on a trip. For the first time, I hated having to go to New York.

The weekend before I was set to leave, Yarrow worsened. A day or two later, I knew there was pretty much nothing more that could be done for him. I waited, spending as much time with him as I could, and that Tuesday night, he began to show the first real signs of being unable to breathe. Wednesday, he grew worse and started having his first gasping episodes. He was eating, he wanted to play, he wanted to cuddle, he was a normal, healthy rat in every way – except that he had an alien in his chest that was squeezing the life out of him with each passing moment, and now he was suffering.

I put Yarrow to sleep on Thursday morning. He died easily, surrounded by love and familiarity, not strangers or a cold examination room being handled by people who he did not know. He simply went to sleep. He wanted to live. I wanted him to live. But there was nothing either one of us could do, and letting him die a death of slow suffocation was simply not an option. I wasn’t feeling guilty; just heartbroken.

The cruel irony of it all is that one thing Yarrow used to particularly enjoy was smelling the air. From when I first got him, every time a breeze would blow in through the window, he’d raise his head and sniff and sniff and sniff and sniff. He’d lie in front of the window by the hour, sleep in front of the window. He loved to breathe. I gave him all the air I possibly could for as long as I possibly could.

Well, this is a testament to my boy. I love my other rats completely, and I am trying hard not to neglect them, but I miss Yarrow very, very much. So now what is left of his physical form sits in a handsome box in his old spot in front of the window. He may not be able to breathe the air anymore, but still it surrounds him, and true to my word, I will never abandon him. He’ll be with me always, just like all my other rats will. I just wish that things could have been different.

Safe journeys, Yarrow, my shining little masked prankster. Thank you for coming my way.

This post was edited to correct the dates, because I’m a dumbass. No number shall escape me unmangled!

Bayberry died about 40 minutes ago. He had been diagnosed with renal cancer last weekend. I was hoping that the antibiotics he was on would help him, but they really didnt. At least his illness wasn’t long and lingering.

He was a good, good rat who loved his peas and always had a smile on. Farewell, my little Badbelly Rat. May the stars shine down upon your tiny galactic highway. I’ll see you on the other side. I’m so glad you’re not in pain anymore. I wish I could have helped you.

<3<3<3

Yarrow Rat – masked (imperfect masked colouration because of the patches over his ears, which I think make him a million times more awesome); black-eyed white variety. He’s the boss of the new boys (except when Bayberry is around) but tends to forget this and acts very silly as often as possible.

Laurel Rat – American blue berkshire (He could be a Russian blue variety, but I’m not sure). Rats who have a gray colouration are known as “blue rats.” I LOVE BLUE RATS. When he’s not being timid and staring at me from a corner (he subscribes to the “if I freeze she won’t be able to see me, even if I’m totally out in the open” school of thought), he’s practically shoving himself up my nose in order to get me to pet him for 17 hours in a row. A rattie dichotomy!

Liquorice – the youngest boy. Closest I come to describing his markings are as a variegated black berkshire. This is a little brat and full of energy and mischief. His eyes sparkle like little chips of black diamonds.

Berkshire rats have white bellies and colour on top with a clear line delineating; masked rats have colour only over their eyes. So since Laurel’s white belly comes up just a little more than it should, Liquorice is variegated, and Yarrow has black ear patches, all three of them are just plain mutts! And thems me favourite breed of all. Mutts FTW! Being a mutt myself, I’m probably a little biased.

Three awesome, beautiful new boys who are totally cool with being handled. Yarrow was apparently picked up right off the sidewalk outside this woman’s home. There are several hundred of these rats who have already been rescued, and every one of them I’ve seen so far have easily the most beautiful markings of any rescue rats I’ve ever seen. In fact, everyone involved in this rescue (the rescuers, the fosters, and the forever homes) are all saying the same thing, as well. Almost all the rats are extremely friendly, and thankfully a good number of them have either found homes, are in foster care, or are bound for a rat train to a forever home as soon as quarantine is up.

I owe Debbie from Secondhand Rats a huge debt of gratitude for rescuing these boys, her friends Ken and Connie for fostering them, and Ken for providing the rat train ride to get them to my house (citing my ongoing transportation problems, which seem diabolical in their intent to prevent me from having a decent car out here). Now my beautiful Bayberry has companions again, which has made him very happy after spending some lonely, sad weeks all alone and grieving for Ginger, Holly, and especially Lotus.

My little Lotus…

Thanks most especially to my rat guru, Diane, for all the help she has given me in the past, for her unending patience and overflowing spring of good advice and encouragement, and for telling me about this rescue. She is the kind of human being every furkid in the world should have as their mom, and I am lucky and honoured and grateful that she is my friend.

All three of these little monsters are settling in fine, eating me out of house and home, and rapidly becoming hideously spoiled. I love them all madly.

Say hello, everybody!

Well, right after Lotus died, a friend of mine who is my Rat Guru told me about another huge rat rescue – there’s always a huge rat rescue somewhere – out in Ojai, California. A handicapped woman apparently took in some rats that had been dumped on her property and the situation quickly got well out of control, resulting in hundreds of rats running around everywhere.

One of my roommates recently bought a new car, and decided in a surprising and very generous gesture to loan me his old one, a Ford Aerostar van, until I was able to put together enough money to buy another used car of my own. The van needed a little work, but I agreed that a couple hundred dollars of work was worth it if it meant that I would have transportation in the meantime.

Well, my mechanic, whom I’ve known for a number of years now and has heretofore always been absolutely great, is having some kind of weird episode where shit he fixes keeps breaking. I had the van in twice for a total of 7 days out of 14 and the original major problem which I brought in to be fixed was never repaired. But he did put in a new starter, which cost me $300 and which my roommate could have done himself for under $100.

The problem is that the heater core is bad. I observed this from the get go after looking up the symptoms of the issue on the Intertron – but all that resulted when I put forth my own findings was that I was called a couple of names and routinely ignored. Turns out I was right, though – funny how that happens, isnt it? – and what’s more, my roommate also discovered, after poking around under the hood, that after the repair that was made to the van nobody bothered to reattach any of the hoses or parts they had to remove to replace the starter. So this whole thing has been a $400 cock-up and now I’m not only out the money, I still dont have a fucking ride.

We went to take the van back on Friday, and met my mechanic’s wife at the station. She looked fucking horrible and we were informed that my mechanic is out of the country until next Monday. We told her we’d be back. And so there was no ride out to Ojai for me – I had been planning on getting the van repaired, you see, and then driving out to the Ojai Humane Society where for some reason, though they describe themselves as a no-kill shelter, they have been killing the rats from this large rescue operation. As a result, all the foster homes in the area are urging people to pick from the Ojai HS group if they possibly can, in order to save those guys first.

No such luck for me. Best intentions, and all that.

So I went back to the forum where the rescue is being tracked and described my plight. Almost immediately, Debbie from Secondhand Rats contacted me and told me she’d have three boys from the Ojai rescue for me “tonight” (this was yesterday; Saturday). I waited on tenterhooks ALL DAY to hear from her and finally, late last night, I got an email from her, with that pic above attached to it.

Today she emailed me very briefly this morning to let me know that five of the boys, including my three, were given to a foster who will be getting them out to me on the rat train as soon as they possibly can. I havent heard from Debbie at all for the rest of the day, and she’s pretty adept at not answering any questions at all or indeed seemingly even reading the mail I’ve sent her (asking repeatedly for my phone number, which I have given her twice), but I’m trying to curb my extreme impatience because I know it’s all the more intense for my being really, really, really excited about these new boys coming!

For one thing, it’s been a hell of a hard, stressful, sad past six months or so, with all the illnesses and death in my little mischief. But more importantly, my one remaining rat, Bayberry, is all alone now, and he’s really missing his companions. I want to get those boys here as soon as I possibly can. At the very least it would be nice if someone would answer my damn questions. :P

But there are my new boys: I’ll be taking the gray boy (known as a “blue rat” in fancy rat terminology), hopefully the little black guy with the white nose, and the white boy with the black mask on. I am freaking out like a five year old on Christmas Eve right now, and each moment that goes by without an email or a phone call from these folks telling me theyre heading out my way is like an eternity. I can’t wait!

Well, in the meantime, back to work with me. You may all look upon the picture and worship the lunacy-inducing adorability that are my new baby boys.

I’m madly in love with every single rat I have ever had. But every so often one truly special little beast comes along that grabs my heart in a special way.

Lotus was one of those rats. He was an extraordinary creature from the very first day we met. I never met a rat quite like him. He was probably the most loving rat I’ve ever known. And that’s saying a lot – rats are extremely affectionate.

He had some bad health problems for most of his life. It is astounding that he lived as long as he did. I spent nearly every waking – and sleeping – moment with him. And yet, at the end, I was not there. He was tucked away in his special blankie on my bed – he couldnt sleep anywhere else, he’d have panic attacks – and I checked on him every 10 or 15 minutes as I made dinner tonight. During one of those brief interludes, he died. After all of these months of constant, unending care, broken sleep, medications day and night, I failed him when he most needed me to be there. He died alone. I missed him by literal minutes. I never even had a chance to say goodbye or tell him how much I loved him.

I am fucking shredded. I failed him in the worst possible way. I hope he wasn’t scared. :( If only I’d checked on him five minutes sooner! Just five minutes sooner…

I can only hope that at the end he did not feel that I abandoned him. I loved him with every particle of my being. I knew for months there was no hope that he would survive his illness, and still now that it’s over, even though I know he’s better off now, it’s ripping my heart out of me.

Goodbye, Lotus. I hope that you know that I would have given anything, done anything, to be there with you. I did not abandon you. Please believe me. I will never forgive myself for not being there for you after all these weeks and months of constant vigilance.

I’m so very, very sorry.

Snow-Flakes

Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair.
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
– Longfellow

My lil hairless ones are gone now. Holly was just so awesome. Because she was a hairless albino, in many ways she looked just like a tiny, pink pig. She had a very, very long life – she was around 38 months old, which is venerable indeed for a rat – and I hope she lived a happy time. She was so healthy and cheerful, and I was glad to be here at the very end for her.

Safe journeys to you, my little piggy girl, and someday I’ll catch up to you and your beautiful brother again. Say hi now and then, if you get the chance.

I miss you.

<3<3<3

Various medical authorities swarm in and out of here predicting I have between two days and two months to live. I think they are guessing. I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying.

Please pardon my levity, I don’t see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd.

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Fnord, old man. Give ‘em hell on the other side. And thanks for a wild ride. We shall not see your like again!

I’m so happy that in his last months he was able to rest easy and know exactly how important and valuable he was to so many people. I hope that it helped ease whatever pain he was in.

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