Buffalo Road / Travel Stories

Messages From the Other Side

Quite a while ago I got laser eye surgery. For almost a year afterwards (and still a few random times here and there to this day), I would get ready for bed and go to remove my contacts. This is the best way to describe the subtle ways I have been adapting to the last few weeks.

This is what life feels like now without my little ratties.

My temporary role in this world as a rat mama was an honor and a privilege. It became such a part of who I now am that I still go through the motions. I’m not sure who I am without them. It’s not that having them in my life was some mundane routine I would subconsciously repeat. They became a part of who I am. They became my everything. My life ritual.

Every meal that I eat, I still start to put some food aside for them. Every loud noise that happens, I still wonder if they heard it and are scared. Certain times of the day I still instinctively look at the clock because those were the times when they would wake up for a mid-day snack. The evenings are the worst. This is when I wonder why I can’t be sitting with them, watching Grey’s Anatomy, Night Shift, Longmire or the handful of shows that were on when I cuddled with them at night. Their sleeping quarters are still as they were before they left this world. I can’t bare to tear it all down and let the room be empty. It’s all the physical proof I have that they were here. Their presence was everything.

It’s difficult for some people to understand the weight of a non-human death. Some people see you as ‘taking it too far’ or wondering why it’s a big deal because ‘it’s just a pet’. They belittle your loss and make you feel like you should move on quicker because it wasn’t your flesh and blood, it wasn’t your ‘human’ family. Well, they were my family. They are now as ingrained in my DNA as is my biological family.

They changed me, and shaped my perspective. I am a completely different person today because they were in my life.

I would like to think that they are still with me somehow. This is the only way I know how to move on. A few days after Osha passed, I was in the laundry room and about to transfer some clothes from the dryer into a basket to take upstairs. But before I could, a little black whisker jumped into the basket out of nowhere. It was one of Osha’s. I could feel her in the room with me. And for a single moment, I was okay. I keep praying for more moments like this. Messages from the other side.