If you had asked me this a couple weeks ago, I would have said no. However, I also realize that most of the pets we have had over the last 10 years, we either did not have until they died, or they were too small to have much interaction with.
Today, our pet rat of two years died. She had cancerous growths that started earlier this summer; but over the last week we found that she was getting really, really bad; emaciated, loosing some hair, not moving much, not eating much. We started giving her crackers with peanut butter on it for the last two days, as she would actually eat it – but would eat nothing else.
Today, when I went to give her the food, she took it, put it aside, and then dragged, and pulled her tired body down one cage flight, out onto the door and up against my chest. She continued to start to climb up onto me, which she had no strength to do. She hasn’t tried to climb out onto me in a long time. But today, despite almost no strength she made the unbelievable effort, and she was determined.
I helped her up onto my shoulder which was her final aim; and she tried to climb into my shirt, as she had always done as a baby rat. I couldn’t let her into my shirt, because she was very sickly and it kind of grossed me out. However, I stood there for about 15 minutes petting her. And she started to brux – a sound rats make when they are very happy – they grind their teeth together. Eventually she stopped bruxing, until Donovan came back over, and started petting her, and she started bruxing again.
Donovan was upset because she seemed to be crying – he was right – either it was the amount of effort she put into climbing on me, or she was actually crying. After she got on my shoulder she sat there for a short while, and tears started to come from her eyes – but just a short while later, her eyes were dry again.
It was time for me to go back to work; but I knew she wasn’t going to last the rest of the day; Amanda held her for a while, and then let Donnie hold her. It was unbelievable to see how calm she was (apart from her very labored breathing) once she got into our arms.
I let Amanda know that she should have the kids say goodbye, and a short while later, stormy died in Donnie’s lap.
The kids of course are devastated; they have never experienced death for something they were very close to. Amanda told Braeden that we would bury her and she would turn into a flower. Braeden kept saying to me, “Papa, I don’t want a flower, I want stormy” – a couple times he said “Papa, can’t we pray to God and ask Him to give stormy back to us” – “I know God can bring stormy back, why don’t we just ask”.
Wow – it was really hard as a father to experience the sorrow of my children from their lost…
But Stormy’s death had a profound impact on me; she knew she was dying and she wanted to spend her last moments with her family – rather than in her cage… profound….