Some of you may remember my thread from earlier this year, only just this past March, when we discovered a little white mouse we named Ralph. On the 23rd of December, we lost him. I don’t know quite what happened. He was fine all that day, and at night he curled up and went to sleep in his usual spot… and he just stopped moving. I reached in to pet his little head, maybe to jar him out of sleep, wondering what was wrong, but I knew before I even felt how cold and stiff his little body was that something was wrong.
I cleaned his cage for the last time and put his little body into a small cardboard box. I dug a little hold outside and I put him in it.
He never bothered anyone, very content to live in his little mouse cage, running in his wheel, nibbling on his food, chewing on his mineral block. He always had fresh water in his bottle, and the occasional treat, and some wood blocks. The kitties never bothered him at all, but loved to watch him - like a favourite television show, he was. He lived on my desk for nine months. Then he died.
I know mice don’t live very long. I know he led a good little mousey life, and probably wouldn’t have made it that long if we hadn’t rescued him that night. But my heart suddenly broke a little when I patted that final bit of dirt over his tiny coffin-box. I started sobbing like a little girl. There’s this tiny little mouse-shaped hole in my heart. I miss his little scrabbling, his wheel going day or night, his munching, his tiny blind pink eyes unseeing but somehow looking like he could see anyway. The way he began to trust me when I put my hand in the cage, bringing sunflower seeds, and letting me pet the back of his fuzzy little head.
And so on the night before Christmas, all through the house, not a creature was stirring… not even my Ralph. 
I miss you, little buddy. You were a good fella.
I couldn’t post this before Christmas. It was too damn sad.
