Laughing Till You Cry - Melody Cryns

“Mom, what are we going to do with Ratata?”

“What do you mean?” it was the middle of the night and I was getting ready for bed.

“He’s dead, the rat is dead,” said Megan’s friend – I don’t remember his name. He was a cute young guy with dark hair who apparently had a camera. He told Megan he was going to take photos of her. That’s what Megan told me. It wasn’t until later that I found out Megan’s new boyfriend didn’t know about this other guy.

“Mom!” Megan shouted. “Can you please see if Ratatata is okay? Maybe he isn’t dead…maybe he’s all right.”

I didn’t want to look, I dreaded looking. Poor Ratata, the rat whom my daughter Megan had adopted a couple of years ago when the rat’s owners couldn’t keep him anymore. Oh no, not another pet I’d said – we already had a dog and a cat. This reminded me of when Jeremy was young and he had this sort of “Dr. Doolittle” complex. At one point, we had two dogs, a cat, a rabbit and two rats.

But what were we to do? The rat needed a home – he was gray and white, and his hair had been dyed purple – why would anyone do that to a rat? He was already a full-grown rat, quite large – probably the same size as our dog Sydney was as a puppy. I of course had to purchase a decent cage for him to live in along with all the assorted thing one needs, bedding for the cage, rat food, a water bottle. I just couldn’t see keeping the poor thing in a small cooler which is where he lived when Megan brought him home.

Ratatata joined our family when we lived at the Avalon Apartments in Mountain View – I remember the rat hanging out with Megan on the computer desk and how the dogs really didn’t seem to be bothered by Ratatata at Jeremy’s 25th birthday party – Floyd-the-Dog was still around then too…

At first, I was afraid to touch Ratatata, thought perhaps he’d bite me – but it didn’t take long to find out that he was a friendly rat and loved to be petted and held – he was a little afraid of our dog Sydney because she’d go up to him and be all protective, as if he was a puppy, and one time he bit Sydney on the nose. And, it was my understanding that he didn’t like other rats. But he was the only one…he slowly just became a part of the family.

Whenever Megan would spend the night at friends’ houses, she’d text me, “Don’t forget to feed Ratatata!” He was always happy to see me, and he loved it when I gave him strawberries or sunflower seeds.

Ratatata went with us to the funky apartment in Mountain View and then to the house we now live at in San Jose.

So when Megan and I peered into the cage and saw that Ratatata was lying very still on his side, we knew – Ratatata had passed away.

Megan put her hand on her mouth when it finally hit her – she had laughed when her friend had said he thought Ratatata was dead because she didn’t believe him.

Suddenly I felt sad too – for Ratatata, for my daughter, for all the loss and changes in our lives…we both held each other and cried while Megan’s guy friend looked on.

“We need to figure out what to do with him – we should bury him,” Megan’s friend said softly.

“Yes, of course.”

Megan went to find a bag or a box for Ratata while I ran over to the computer because I had to do it – I had to find pictures of him, memories of our beautiful Ratatata who was so friendly – he would lick you on the hand. Megan loved him more than her hamster Medusa because Medusa bit her and didn’t like her, but Ratatata was always there for her. Our dog Sydney could tell something was up and she followed Megan while she looked for something for Ratatata.

Tears rolled down my cheeks and I was surprised because I didn’t realize I would be so sad about losing a rat. As I searched for photos, I remembered my beloved guinea pigs that I had as a kid and how attached I was to them – and how my favorite character in one of the first books I was able to read in its entirety, “Charlotte’s Web,” happened to be Templeton the Rat. He was a fat rat, always grumpy and looking for food – and he’d steal food from the other animals. I always secretly loved Templeton and thought he changed the most because he saved the day for Charlotte in the end and carried the sack with all of Charlotte’s babies in his mouth – and it wasn’t just about the food binge either.

Poor Ratatata, he was our friend – and now he was gone. Why did this have to happen? People come and go, we’ve moved way too many times – and now Ratatata has left us – that was after Megan’s boyfriend broke up with her the day before her 18th birthday. I finally found the photos of Megan with her wonderful pet rat mixed in with Jeremy’s birthday photos from 2009 – what an adorable fat rat he was – Ratatata. And today was also my mother’s birthday – she would have been 78 years old had she lived.

Megan cried softly as we stood outside at 1:00 a.m. and dug a small hole for Ratatata – and carefully placed his body into the hole. Good-bye Ratatata! Good-bye. We will miss you.