there's a mouse in the house

is a the blade of a shovel too obvious a grave marker?

i just finished painting the names of the murdered mouse family on a rusty shovel that long ago lost its handle.

Velvet
Benny
Matilda
&
Miracle Mouse Sparky

miracle because he survived the unthinkable. hard to believe that only a week's transpired since all that. it all started over ice cream and laundry. i was in the basement loading up the washer and my sister stopped over asking if i wanted to go get a twist with sprinkles. need you ask? i either left the basement door open or never closed it all the way. usually no big deal, but that night it resulted in mayhem. i came home to find what looked for all the world like the usual puked up grey hairball laying on the kitchen floor (they're never hairballs, by the way, you ever notice? they're hair logs). but it was a baby mouse and it was still alive. an infant so small his eyes weren't even open yet. he had two pin prick wounds on his temple. oh god.

so i held him on my lap and got on Facebook, the great purveyor of advice, and wrote "what do i do!?"

i never imagined that my cats' vet would be on and would respond instantly. it was 9:58 PM and yet she offered to meet me at the Cat Hospital to euthanize the poor baby. i cried the whole way there, racing, for some reason, as if i were saving his life instead of ending it. as i drove the jeep, moon shining down on us, i wondered if a baby mouse could get me out of a speeding ticket. velvet (i named him velvet - him because to me everything's a him until proven otherwise, don't ask me why) was nestled in a pocket of flannel meant to polish jewelry. his little pink winding sheet.

it was quite a scientific affair, euthanizing such a tiny baby. he went into a plastic cup to be anesthetized, the sort you'd put over someone's face. as i waited for dr. R to fill a syringe i lifted it to say a final goodbye and somehow flipped the cup and velvet went flying onto a metal shelf, much to my horror. i wasn't sure he needed killing after that. after we were sufficiently sure he was asleep (or already dead), dr. R made sure with a syringe of euthanasia, telling me that once a friend of hers had an injured mouse put to sleep at the local emergency hospital for the whopping heartless fee of $150. velvet died on the house. and we both returned to our friday evening.

i shouldn't have said it, but i did. "i hope i don't come home to find more." and i did.

but i couldn't call her out again for more mouse euthanasia. there was another one on the kitchen floor, really barely alive. and yet another where i suspected the nest was hidden in the little washing room of the basement. that one was covered in filth as if batted around like a hacky sack. yet when i picked him up he came to wild life, wriggling madly in my fingertips. i felt the need to wash him clean and did so carefully in the bathroom. my god, he was alive. i didn't know what to do with them (benny the weak and sparky the lively). so i turned to Google. surely there is some homemade way to make euthanasia. i looked at my shelves. a cotton ball of alcohol? nail polish remover? how do you kill a mouse? it made me sick to even have to do it. of course you can do it quickly with the drop of a brick or the roll of a tire, but i couldn't. if only they could just go to sleep. and i found it, you could mix white vinegar (i had it) and baking soda (i had that, too) and the resulting gas would end their tiny lives. so i set it all up on the basement floor under a big flipped over tupperware, the babies nestled in my mom's soft brown alaskan winter hat. it was supposed to be over in 20 minutes. an hour later i checked and it was anything but over. they were no less alive. now, what do i do at midnight? i left them in their woolen nest and hoped their mother would find and haul them back home.

they were my first thought in the morning. surely they would be gone or dead. but again, they were neither.

OK, now i owe it to them to save them. so i Googled yet again and read how to save a baby mouse's life. i got artist's paintbrushes and kitten formula and raced back home. they'd already been 12 hours without their mother. but when i got back, benny had died. sparky? he was one miracle mouse. he was squeaking at me and wriggling. i held him - he was no bigger than half my forefinger - and dipped the brush in warmed formula and offered it. i decided he was a very smart mouse. he understood and drank. once he was sated, i warmed a disk in the microwave that would keep him warm and i put the whole operation in an large antique domed brass birdcage where i hoped he'd be safe from the very curious cats. it seemed perfect.

every two hours, the internet told me. i had to feed sparky every two hours. now, i was willing to go to great lengths for this little spunky guy, but all night wasn't one of those things. so i fed him all i could all day long and decided he'd just have to make it through the night or not. of course he did.

at first i expected him to be dead every time i looked into his woolly nest, but he just kept on living and getting stronger, a little bigger, a little squeakier. he knew my fingertips meant food. his eyes never did open in the 4 days of our time together, but he had fine velvety grey fur. these two things told me he was between 10-14 days old.

there are things you never imagine yourself doing in your lifetime. i mean, it never even enters your head. washing a baby mouse's face is one of them. i learned to wash the formula off his face with the wet tip of a Q-tip and then flip it over to the dry side and rub his belly to massage his digestive system into action. it was comical, being proud that a mouse peed and pooped for me. i kept him nice and clean and warm and i'd panic when i misplaced the damn paintbrush. his Esso tiger coffee cup was heated a dozen times a day, his disk nuked for heat, his bedclothes washed.  one night a cat knocked his birdcage off my bureau at 2 AM and i crawled all over my rug begging to find him. so far he'd survived a cat attack, my pathetic attempt to euthanize him, a night on a dank cement floor with his dying brother, no mother (i found her dead too and named her Matilda after the mouse in the video who taught me how to care for him). he survived being knocked to the floor and my bumbling attempts to successfully feed him, sometimes almost drowning him in formula.

on sunday sparky attended a cookout. i had no choice, i couldn't leave him unfed in a house full of murderous cats for hours. so he rode in the footwell of the Jeep under the heat and was easily the most unexpected party guest in history. it was awkward explaining why i was carrying a birdcage; um, yes, it's a baby mouse i'm trying to rescue, but the in-laws took it in stride. they already knew i am a little crazy. or a lot. as sparky slept after a feeding, someone's iced tea glass teetered on the edge of a table and toppled onto him, nearly drowning him. sparky was sure using up his nine lives, if mice have nine lives. the children were fascinated by the party guest and that pleased me. i doubt they will ever forget the day a mouse came to a cookout.

as the days went on, i grew more confident. i announced my endeavors on Facebook and suddenly sparky had a huge following rooting for him between my page and that of my kitten Bug. who knew that so many people would be charmed by a baby mouse? some of them would start their days checking their smart phones to see how sparky was faring. each day i'd say "well, sparky survived another night....". and sparky went to work with me. again, i had no choice. he slept in a box on my desk on monday and i later took him to therapy, where my shrink was enthralled. he gave me a glass terrarium for better mouse protection. sparky was chalking up the 'firsts'. first mouse ever to attend a cookout. to go to work. to go to therapy. he was on a roll.

 the internet told me wild baby mice need immediate care, within 2 hours, in order to survive. and here i'd wasted that time trying to euthanize sparky and benny and then leaving them for their mother to find, not knowing she was already dead too. but sparky was going strong. the stats told me he had a 5-25% chance of survival, but as the days passed i got cocky. my mouse was going to live. i started shopping online for mouse habitats and mouse exercise wheels and worrying that i would save him only to have a cat kill him down the line. but if he lived, would he live one year or several? i'd make him live several! i was, after all, now an expert and so was he. he'd grab the paintbrush and suck and i'd wash his face, rub his belly and clean his butt. the internet warned of the dangers of bloat. bloat could kill. i began to wonder how anyone ever had a second child after going through this kind of thing with a first. so much attention, so much worry, so much time.

sparky rewarded me with so much life. frankie and tad did not care that i was feeding a mouse, they just wanted room in my lap. beanie and big, the great hunters and no doubt reason for sparky's circumstances, sat with huge eyes that transmitted their incomprehension. they give me dead mice for presents, after all. why were they not allowed to murder this one? better still, why was i feeding it? i could tell benie was just beside himself. after all, it was on my lap.

but tuesday was another story. sparky was lethargic. i had to wake him to eat and he was ornery about it. and he smelled funny. i thought maybe i hadn't cleaned him well enough. but his poop was weird too. it wasn't regular mouse poop, it was pale and soft. is this what bloat does? i massaged and massaged his belly. we went to work and i ignored emails to tend to my mouse. someone came to see me and apparently knows me well, because he didn't blink an eye when he found me feeding a mouse with a paintbrush at my computer. i was going to devote my day to making sure he improved but my plans were thwarted by students, new students arriving at the college and not enough staff to help down at the big track and tennis facility where they checked in. so i had to go. at noon i ate pizza and fed sparky in the equipment room. still not eating well, still not squeaking or wriggling like just last night. i had to sit for hours in a steamy airless building waiting on parents and students, sparky in a box at my feet. again, at 2 PM i decided i have priorities, and my mouse was it. we went out back to a picnic table in the cool shade but i was immediately troubled. he was not interested in food and should have been, always was before. i offered the paintbrush, flicked away gnats, rubbed his belly, checked his heating disk. was he too hot or cold? did he have enough air? again, he smelled funny. i begged him, sparky just hang on until i get out of here and i will spend every waking minute on you.

at 4 PM we were allowed to close up shop and i gathered my things. my boss, sucking on a candy, asked what i had in the box. a mouse, i said. "a mouse for a computer?" he asked. um, no a real mouse. "can i see?" a little embarrassed and with some hesitation, i opened the cover wide to show him. "he doesn't look so good," he said.

sparky was dead. i poked gently with a finger to make sure, but i didn't even have to. it was pretty obvious. he was still warm. "i'm going home to cry now", i told them, and walked to the exit holding my mouse box while tears blinded me. my dead sparky. in my Jeep i started crying and bawled all the way home on the back roads. i blamed the students, i blamed Central Check-In and the heat and the airlessness and the fact that i couldn't check on him or feed him as often as i would have otherwise.

what did i do wrong? was the formula too strong? didn't i rub his belly enough? was it because i let him go overnight without a feeding? had i been too over-cofident and not vigilant enough? i laid sparky to rest with his siblings velvet and benny and his mother matilda in the pink flannel in a little tupperware. i guess the fact that i'd never buried them yet showed that i was not overly confident. i saved them so they could all be buried together.

and so they were. under the pear tree beside my bunny gianni. they were protected with a sheet of plastic for a week to keep scavenging predators out (once one dug up and stole my baby bunny). i know it's all the cycle of life, it's nature. i know the odds were stacked against us and i know i did all i could. but all that makes it no easier. i had bonded with that little mouse and as far as he knew, i was his mommy. he was my charge, his life depended on me for 4 days and i failed.  it was tough breaking the news to his eager Facebook fans who were already clamoring for a sparky page all his own. it was pretty amazing to know that other people cried for sparky. my pages filled up with condolences, with tears and hearts and assurances that i'd done all i could, more than most would have.

sparky died on my 'cancer-versary'. four years earlier on august 27th i was diagnosed with breast cancer.  at first when he died i thought what a shitty gift to get on this day. and then i realized, it was a wonderful four day gift to have had him at all. 

i didn't try to save sparky's life for any other reason than i thought i owed it to him after all my cats and i had put him through. i mean, hell, i'd tried to kill him. i wasn't noble. no one except my shrink even knew i'd first tried my hand at homegrown euthanasia. and so that haunts me too. what if i weakened him in those wasted our with that ridiculous gassing? people gave me credit for having such a pure heart and such kindness. they blessed me and declared me an angel. but just like my "About Me" says on this blog, i'm just a person. i don't know how someone else could drop a brick or roll a tire over a baby mouse, i just knew i couldn't. and if i couldn't do that, i couldn't also just let him die a slow death of starvation and dehydration. so that meant only one thing. i had to try.

and sparky rewarded me (and so many others) for those efforts. so vulnerable, so fragile, so tiny. that little spark of life left a huge mouseprint on me and i will never forget those 4 days in august.