Grief is screaming “NO!” at the top of your lungs, over and over, when you find out she isn’t breathing.
A neighbor comes to see what is happening and your friend sends him away.
Grief is when your head hurts from too much crying the first day without her.
Grief is wailing “My little one, my little one…” in endless tears.
Grief is the moments between tears when nothing makes sense, you can’t imagine a life without her, and the pain is present in every particle of your body.
Grief is blank. Grief is staring into space, frozen in pain. Grief is endless scrolling through your Facebook feed, nothing bringing you much relief. Grief is going about your day mechanically, forcing yourself to move one foot in front of the other.
Grief is knowing you can never see her again, hold her again.
Grief is not being able to accept this.
Grief is not wanting to move on because that feels like losing her.
Grief is a friend sleeping on your couch for four nights, holding you because you can’t hold yourself together.
Grief is the happy memories, smiling through tears.
***
I found her outside on a walk. She was sitting in the grass on the roadside. Her fur was a perfect, startling white. She was happily nibbling on something she held in her tiny paws.
I stared at her in awe and then suddenly realized she couldn’t possibly survive outside. I scooped her up before I could think it through, and just like that, I suddenly had a mouse.
I didn’t know at the time that she would become my best friend. I didn’t know she would save my life as I saved hers.
I didn’t know how much I would love her.
I carried her home in a small handbag, her tiny snout peeking through the opening. I didn’t have a cage, so I put her in the biggest pot I had and gave her tissues, oatmeal, and water. She wasn’t afraid at all, just curious.
I was stressed at the time because I didn’t know if I could take care of something living. I was afraid of the responsibility. I even considered giving her to someone else. Later, I wouldn’t be able to imagine what my life would have been like if I had.
But I got a cage. I bought mouse food. I learned.
And after a few days, the stress passed, and I was sharing a space with a living, curious little being. I would take her out of her cage in the mornings and evenings when she was active, and soon, I couldn’t imagine my days without her.
Since the painful breakup with my partner of 11 years, the first serious relationship I ever had, she was the first living creature to breathe the same air as me.
I had a post-breakup trip planned, just for a weekend, a short trip over the border, just to prove that I could do it alone. I went. I explored during the day and cried, cried so much in the evenings. I cried so much that strangers on the street stopped and asked if they could help me. I remember standing in a lavish palace, staring at an ornate fireplace, and thinking, “What am I even doing here? The only thing I want is to share a hearth with someone again.”
I went home, heartbroken and tired. And when I arrived, the first thing I did was check on her. I lowered my hand into her cage, and she put her little paws on my finger. At that moment, I suddenly felt home.
***
We soon fell into a comfortable routine. I took her out of her cage in the mornings and evenings, and she would burrow under my hoodie and run all over me. Tiny, gentle paws like a caress. A touch I almost didn’t feel.
I started contemplating getting her a friend. And then, one day, I looked behind her cage… and there was a mouse. I couldn’t believe my eyes. One white mouse in the cage… one dark mouse outside the cage.
I live in a third-floor apartment. How the hell did she get inside the flat?
Little did I know this was the beginning of a nightmare.
Over the next few months, I repeatedly tried and failed to catch the wild mouse. One wild mouse turned into an infestation of mice. They went inside my food and pooped everywhere. And the worst of it – they were ably to squeeze through the bars of Daisie’s cage.
In the end, I got a humane trap and managed to catch – and transport away from my flat – nineteen wild little mice.
But, unbeknownst to me, the damage was already done. There would be another nightmare to come, a desperate fight to save my Daisy’s life.
But the beginning seemed innocent. Daisy started gaining weight and I realized she was expecting. I promised her that I would care for her, no matter what, and we would get through this together.
Everything went well. She gave birth to five tiny grey mice babies. The first morning after giving birth, she asked to go into my hand. Only after I noticed she wasn’t round anymore, I went to look into her cage, and there they were! She was a wonderful mom. But occasionally, when she needed a break, she went to sit inside her running wheel and took time to groom herself.
The little ones grew up. Everything was fine. And then the nightmare came.
One day, I noticed a little wound in Daisie’s fur. She had a similar wound before when a wire that fell in her cage slightly punctured her side, a little red dot, so I thought she hurt herself on the wire that held her water bottle. I tried to secure the wire, but more wounds appeared. She started sleeping while hanging on the top of her water bottle. Oh, how I wish I wasn’t so naive and inexperienced! It occurred to me only a few days later that this wasn’t normal and I took her to a vet.
It turned out she had scabies. She must have caught it from the wild mouse. The vet gave her treatment, but the damage was already done. Sometimes mice start to hurt themselves after such an experience and keep hurting themselves. And that’s what happened to Daisy.
What followed was a desperate fight for her life.
I took her to a rodent specialist and she recommended euthanasia if her treatment did not work. I spend a week in bed, overcome by grief. It didn’t work.
I took her to another vet for a second opinion. He tried to put a shirt made of gauze on her so she couldn’t scratch herself bloody. She immediately got out of it. He tried to fashion her a small recovery cone from cardboard, she got out of it before I got home with her. In the end, we made her little “boots” from soft tape. Every day, I would carefully put it on her hind legs. Then I gave her peanut butter for being patient.
It helped a bit. She didn’t scratch her neck, but later, she started to bite her side. We didn’t find anything to prevent that. She got calming meds and painkillers. She has bitten herself bloody, and she healed. We kept fighting.
***
That autumn, I went through another hell, the hell of withdrawal. I was trying to quit benzodiazepines on my own. Without knowing, I did it in the wrong way, and the result was half a year of intense mental pain. I can’t describe how it felt. Anxiety, depression, apathy. Feelings that I can’t even describe in words. During all that time, Daisy was my light in the darkness. Her presence gave me the strength to bear the unbearable. Every morning and evening and often during the day too, she was my company. I begged her to stay with me until I was clean. I would be completely lost without her. With her, I wasn’t alone.
In the end, the suffering was too much. When I came off the benzos completely, I went through ten days of nonstop panic attacks and then ten days of nonstop, terrible pain. That was when I finally decided to go to the psychiatric hospital to detox. It was brutal. They locked me up. Took my phone, my clothes, my cosmetics. Left me three pairs of underwear and colored pencils. I got a hospital gown to wear. A bed in a drafty room. On the bed beside mine, a delirious woman was angrily raving. I was so scared.
I spent the first night crying because I felt that I let Daisy down. I wasn’t with her. My friend was taking good care of Daisy during that time, but I was still nervous that I left my ill mousie in another’s care. She has never left my side before. I begged the nurses to let my friend call them and tell them how she was doing, and when they passed on that she was doing well, I cried in relief.
When I was discharged from the hospital, the first thing I did was to go get Daisy. That first evening I spent just looking at her, so happy that we were together again. Before, I begged her to stay with me until I was clean, and she did. She was happy and healthy while I was in the hospital, and only after I got out, she suddenly started rapidly aging. I believe she waited for me. That she knew I needed to be sure she was doing well.
It was so difficult to watch her and realize that one day, perhaps soon, she would leave me. All she wanted was my company, and so I held her in the palm of my hand all day long. I put her in her cage only at night when it was time to sleep. We were together, all the time, always.
I regretted so much that I didn’t get her a companion while I still could. Only after the scabies, I learned that female mice need to be kept in groups, but it was already too late. She kept wounding herself and it was too risky – the vet said another mouse could kill her because of her wounds. I tried to make up for it and spend all the time with her.
She was with me when the post-acute withdrawal syndrome hit me in full force. When I realized that the worst wasn’t behind me, but, in fact, in front of me yet. When I suffered from the torture of a complete lack of feelings, from the acute anxiety. When I was so broken I didn’t even know how to exist. She was a steady presence by my side as my brain continued to heal.
She celebrated her second “found day” with me. I made her a tiny cake. That evening I noticed I had to help her to get to the piece of cucumber she wanted. She started to have trouble moving. When she couldn’t groom herself anymore, I washed her fur. When she squeaked in the night, I took her out of her cage and cradled her. I wanted to do everything for her, to give her the world, to make sure she was happy.
When I knew her time was coming, I was so devastated. I was completely exhausted by grief. I would go to visit the friend that took care of her, Daisy in my hand, and as soon as I arrived, I handed her Daisy so she wouldn’t be without company even for a second and immediately fell asleep. I have never been so tired in my life.
***
During all those dark times, she was the light to lead my way.
***
On her last day, she got a spa treatment. I washed her fur and massaged her legs. She ate several helpings of whipped cream and a piece of a melon. I believe she was happy and content.
And then, in the evening, the seizures came and I knew it was time.
How do you care for someone who is dying in front of your eyes? How do you say goodbye?
I sang her on the way to the Rainbow Bridge. I sang to her because there wasn’t anything else left to do.
And then she wasn’t breathing and I was screaming, screaming for her.
She was the light of my days. She was my partner, my friend, my child. She was everything.
I have her photo on the wall and I say good morning to her every day.
I believe she watches over me still.
And one day, I will come to the Rainbow Bridge and there she will be, waiting… and we will cross the Rainbow Bridge together.
