Photo by Ricky Irvine

To those of you who know me, it’s no surprise that I love animals.  Dogs, parrots, and horses top the list as my ultimate favorites.  But I also have a soft spot for all other creatures in God’s beautiful world as well.  There’s just something magical about looking into the eyes of a blinking, breathing, concious animal and knowing that somewhere deep inside of them, a living creature is staring back at me. 

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that I’ve always had a hard time killing rodents in inhumane ways.  Yes, I know they carry diseases.  Yes, I know they’re pests.  Yes, I know they must not be allowed to invade a house (as they can take over quite quickly!).  Yes, I stand on chairs and scream when one runs past.  But, regardless of how filthy scientists tell us they are, it still hurts my heart to hear a little mouse squeaking when a trap hasn’t fully killed him.  It makes me sick to think of them being poisoned just because they mistakenly thought they had found a pile of nourishing food to eat.  I can’t stand the idea of any of God’s creatures suffering in pain.  I’ve been known to cry more than once over having to get rid of rodents in less than perfect ways over the years. 

I remember one winter, years and years ago when I still lived at home with mom and dad, my parent’s house was suddenly invaded by some quite large furry friends who had chewed their way in under our hot water heater beside the sink.  I suppose they thought it made a nice warm home?  They set up camp, and the family of rats thought they had struck it rich.  Food, water, heat, shelter….what more could they ask for?

Well, thanks to a very large trap, we managed to rid ourselves of what we thought were all of our unwanted house guests.

That is, until the morning I saw Him.

“Him” was a tiny little baby rat, and he was no more than an inch long.  “Him” had a pink furless body, and big, brown, helpless eyes.  “Him” was now an orphan.  We had killed his parents and now he was doomed to a cruel world.  “Him” hadn’t asked to be born into a human’s home.  It wasn’t “Him’s” fault that his thoughtless parents chose to set up residency in our kitchen.  Now Him’s only lot in life was to die a miserable, lonely death.

Being the tenderhearted-over-animals person that I was, I spent the next hour crying my eyes out over his fate.  Finally I convinced my mom to let me take care of this poor creature.  Being the wonderful person that she is, she took me to our local petstore to pick up some nursing supplies. 

I wish I could say this story turns out perfectly.  I wish I could say that little Him the Rat went on to lead a long and fulfilling life as a Mickey Mouse double.  But life does’t always make up for the injustices of this world.

For the next 10 hours I sat vigile over Him, coaxing his slowly dying lips to take just a little more nourishment from the teeny bottle nipple.  It’s hard for me to watch the life leave any creature.  God only gives each of us -man and animal- one  little life span in the course of history to enjoy his magnificent world, so the realization that yet another life has stopped always has a profound effect on me.

The next morning we buried the orphaned Him in his makeshift home - a shoebox lined with terrycloth - along with his little bottle. 

To this day, when we set traps, or lay poison, or open the door for the exterminator, we inevitably pause and think about little orphaned Him, and how we once opened our eyes and hearts to a living being outside our normal comfort zone.

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