Scabbers: A Tale of Love and Loss

There was a point in my son’s young life when he would only answer to "Harry," as in Harry Potter.

He wore his heavy, black wizard cape and glasses everywhere, even during a scorching July heatwave. He assigned his friends various characters and taught them spells, whether they wanted to learn them or not. He ate, breathed and slept Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

It was during this Harry Potter phase that I began to consider the idea of a pet for my 6-year-old. I knew that I would have to choose carefully. I have tremendous allergies and sneeze if I even walk into a conversation about cats or pollen.

My sister, Summer, suggested a hairless rat, so Justin and I viewed some images online. They creeped me out, with their beady, little red eyes and their long, eerie tails.

Justin’s reaction was a bit different. “Aren’t they so cute?” he squealed.

“Oh my goodness, they are so ugly,” came my reply.

He looked at me with disappointment. “They are not ugly, Mom. They’re just different.”

I gave a resigned sigh. Clearly, resistance would be futile.

I turned to my sister for help. Summer is quite the rat aficionado, so she knew exactly what to look for. On Christmas morning, she brought over the chosen rat and his three-story cage, complete with a tunnel, dishes, toys and bedding.

Justin named his hairless rat Scabbers, after Ron Weasley’s pet and animagus. He said it was the greatest gift he had ever received, and my sister and I toasted to our combined genius.

Within a few weeks of Scabbers’ arrival, however, I was coughing and sneezing more than usual. I chalked it up to the changing weather. I wore a mask when I cleaned his cage. I washed my hands when Scabbers even looked at me. 

Meanwhile, Justin was loving his pet. He had even begun to grow on me, my roommate and my boyfriend. We played with him and fed him and watched him scamper and chew things. And then I sneezed and itched and took Benadryl.

After about a year, I was finally ready to face the facts: Scabbers was making me too sick. We had to find him a new home.

Justin was heartbroken by the news. I assured him that Aunt Summer would take wonderful care of Scabbers and that we could visit him anytime. I explained that keeping our family healthy was more important than keeping a pet. He reluctantly agreed and was sad for only about a day. Summer picked up Scabbers and took him to her home one morning while Justin was at school.

I was relieved that our pet drama was over.

That January, I received a phone call from my mom: “Scabbers died. Summer is so upset.”

“Oh geez.” Poor Summer. My sister takes pet care very seriously and was probably in a downward spiral of self-blame and guilt. We hadn’t been to visit Scabbers at all in the month and a half since he had moved out, so I wasn’t concerned about Justin. He really seemed to have moved on.

To be on the safe side, though, I suggested we not say anything to Justin about Scabbers’ death. It was the day before his birthday party, after all. We could wait for a better time to break the news to him.

As Murphy’s Law would have it, now that Scabbers was dead, Justin began to ask more earnestly about going to visit him.

I am not proud of the way I handled this. For seven weeks, I said nothing of his rat’s death. I said Summer was busy or we were busy or it was raining too hard. Then, one cloudy night, we were browsing through some of my sister’s new Facebook photos. Justin saw an image of her new hamster. “Oh look, Mom. Summer got a friend for Scabbers.”

“Uh-huh.” I gulped. What was I doing?

“Is he in the same cage?”

“No, they are in different cages.” How deep a hole was I prepared to dig for myself here?

“Oh.” He looked up at me with his big, round trusting eyes. “Can we go visit them this week?”

“OhhoneyI’msosorryScabbersdied.” I blurted it all out at once and held my breath.

Justin looked at me in disbelief for a moment. His lip began to quiver; his eyes filled with tears. He threw himself into his pillow and let out loud and guttural sobs.

I was shocked and ashamed of myself. I sat next to him and held the space while he cried. I considered taking it all back and pretending that I had been joking. I genuinely entertained the idea for several minutes before I realized that I was out of my mind. I would just have to sit there and be with his misery until it passed.

He asked me the tough questions, and I gave him the tough answers. Scabbers died in his sleep. It happened the day before his birthday party. Yes, I had been lying all this time. They buried him in the woods somewhere. Yes, of course, we could have a funeral.

I sent an e-mail to a handful of friends asking them to please come to my son’s hairless rat’s funeral the next day at 6:30 p.m.

After our cluster of friends arrived, I pulled up a photo of Scabbers on my computer,  lit a candle and set out a couple of Scabbers’ favorite things: a ramekin of parmesan cheese and some shredded paper. We stood around the table and each shared a memory of our hairless friend. It took less than 10 minutes, and then Justin and his friend went to play with their Lightsabers. I drank chamomile tea with the grown-ups, and we all shared stories of the pets we had loved and lost in our youth.

We said good night, and then my friends were on their way. Scabbers was gone, Justin was moving on, and I had been forgiven by omission. I ate the cheese, tossed the shredded paper in the recycle bin and shut down my computer. I finally felt peaceful when I went to tuck Justin in.

This was my son’s first journey through love and loss. I hugged him a little tighter that night, knowing it wouldn’t be his last.

Then it was time to call and check on my sister, who I suspected was still suffering. She was sick with the flu and couldn’t make the funeral. On top of it all, rather than feeling like she had come through for me, she felt that she had let me down.

I reassured her as best I could. There was nothing you could have done. You took wonderful care of Scabbers. It was his time to go. Yes, I promise Justin doesn’t blame you at all.

And the next time I saw her, I hugged her a little tighter, too.