It’s a warm and slightly muggy evening here. I’m sipping slowly from a glass of grapefruit juice and rum and can still feel the grit beneath my fingernails from filling the dirt in around Flash’s corpse. He’s buried out beneath a sumac tree in our backyard just on the other side of the trunk from Fu Xi (foo-shee), who we buried last year. For such small animals, rats leave very big impressions.

Flash and Fu Xi both taught us more about rats than any of our previous had, and Flash was even able to teach our new bucks (Leif and Neville) a bit about us. He was truly something special. I will miss him deeply. We all will.

Flash struggled to overcome a terrible tumor that spent the last 4 months trying to kill him. With antibiotics, baths, love, and chocolate chips he lived three months past the vet’s prediction of two weeks. The strongest, friendliest, and smartest rat we’ve had yet, Flash will truly be missed.

Goodbye, our friend. We will miss your finger licks and strange sleeping positions.