Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

RIP, Denny's

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Wuzza passed away last night while we slept. It was totally unexpected, and I'm still reeling from shock. (Pictured above: Denny's first day home with us, about three years ago.)

I swear I heard her shuffle around in their sleeping box when I called her out for breakfast, but when she didn't appear - all dazed and confused - I had to peek into the covered bookshelf. She didn't look like she was breathing, but it was hard to tell because I had only JUST gotten up and was peeking through a sliver of a hole with a fucking flashlight.

I told myself I was being fucking retarded and seeing things (or, uh, NOT seeing things). After cleaning the cage and bookshelf last night I threw in a ragged piece of old, black sweatpants to give her some soft bedding; a flap of fuzzy black covered her entire face. I couldn't see a damn thing.

I had to put down the flashlight, let the cardboard covering snap back into place, shove my arm through their little rat hole and fish around blindly to find and pull back the material. Once I pulled out, pulled open and peeked back in I could see her dead, frosty eyes (not even glossy dead; frosty dead) which had been hidden by her sweatpants death shroud.

That's when the crying began. That's when the grief began. That's when the "BUT I DON'T UNDERSTAND, SHE WAS GETTING SO MUCH BETTER - YESTERDAY SHE LOOKED //SO GOOD// AND WAS BACK TO CHASING PAPER TOWELS AGAIN!" began. That's when the guilty feeling of negligence set in.

(If one could be condemned "negligent" despite feeding their sickly rat smoked ham, rice pudding, homemade Kentucky Butter Cake, honeydew melon and blue Gatorade before saying goodnight and tucking her into her just cleaned cage and bookshelf. I suppose you could book me on the bath she didn't get last night, but was supposed to. <- We spent 4-5 hours harvesting beech leaves yesterday so we were both hella tired and left that one job "until tomorrow".)

In all of our rat years (which, by this point, is MANY) we've never, ever been greeted by death first thing in the morning. Death almost always came from our own hands (by nitrous/laughing gas) when living became too much to bear (i.e., when their respiratory systems would shut down, leaving them gasping for breath which couldn't be drawn into the lungs).

I've always wished and prayed for ONE insistence of "passed away in her sleep" ("her" because we exclusively keep females); for ONE insistence where blood wouldn't be directly on our hands. Now that I finally got it I feel nothing except guilt. (What happened? How did it happen? Did she struggle? Was it easy? Was she alone? Was Shoney's/Choochie with her? Was it because of something I did? Was it because of something I DIDN'T do?)

The most amazingly fucked up thing? Yesterday? For the first time in weeks Wuzza was her old self again. In the past few days I discovered that she could handle more heavy duty food - i.e., chunks of soft fruit, tender pieces of meat, soft bread, crumbly cake - so I began feeding her less and less baby food and more and more "people" food. She looked so much brighter, more healthy, more alert.

Yesterday she chased, caught and victoriously fucked up a piece of paper towel. (Something she hadn't done since getting sick.) Yesterday she bit my fucking hand when I reached in to haul her ass out of the bookshelf. (Wuzza would often engage in sit down strikes when it came time to clean out their enclosed living quarters. Sometimes, when I had to physically MOVE HER FUCKING ASS to clean out the space, she'd nip my fucking hand to try and dissuade me from tossing all of her "stuff" in the trash.) Yesterday, after finishing every fucking course of dinner, she looked up at me with her patented "MORE, PLZ?" face.

And then? And then she PASSES AWAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING NIGHT WHILE WE'RE SLEEPING in a move that was totally unexpected, totally unanticipated and totally Wooch in every single effing way. Jesus, Gary Balls Wuzza, what the fuck? (NO, SERIOUSLY WHOOSH, WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?)

(The worst/best/most significant part? We spent most of yesterday collecting beech leaves from various graveyards to make a gin-based spirit. At every cemetery I left an offering of Kentucky Butter Cake, water and gin asking everyone and everything to make the sake-like homemade hooch "as potent as possible". Within 12 hours of coming home Denny's died despite her recent upswing.)

(As a rule I try not to view things old testament negative (i.e., our pet was killed in exchange for services rendered), because that's a loaded way to live. Instead, I just try and accept things as being "significant" rather than GOOD or BAD. Yesterday we had an awesome day. We caught a wedding party in the kirkyard of the first cemetery we were going to hit (auspicious or what?), collected leaves at mindbogglingly beautiful surroundings, ate lunch on top of a neolithic monument and created our first bottle of Beech Tree Noyau deliberately using leaves from ancient (and some not-so-ancient, but still pretty damn old) graveyards.)

So.

So as Miz Deniz sits wrapped up in tea towels in a Tupperware container in the fridge (<- THE IN-LAWS ARE HOME; DON'T WANT TO FREAK OUT THE NATIVES) I have to come up with some sort of Wuzza specific death altar. (How the FUCK do I find/make a rat-sized dumpster? WOOSHU, DAMMIT, YOU'RE EVEN DIFFICULT IN DEATH.)