Here Lies Abe...Let Him Rest In Peace

To the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure.

~Albus Dumbledore~

I went to bed early last night. I had to be in the lab to run my mice kind of early, and was a bit bored at 9:30 - so I went to sleep. Being very, very tired from the previous week of work I fell into a deep sleep almost immediately (something quite rare). I woke up to my phone ringing at about 1:00 AM. It was Sonia, calling with some bad news. Abe was dead. She was crying.

He was found in his cage, and most likely died peacefully in his sleep. While this is a sad time, and we will all miss him - it was his time to go. Not too long before Justin deployed he brought his pet mouse, Abe, down to Lubbock on a visit hoping to find a surrogate home for him. When Sonia (who worked in my lab at the time) heard about him, she instantly asked if she could keep him. Abe was almost two years in age and getting a bit slower, but had a ton of personality left. In his early days he could wear out a wheel faster than most people could install one. If he was not running in the wheel he would sleep in it for fear that Justin would think he was not using it and remove it for a while. He loved that wheel, but one winter day stopped using it. He had suffered what was most likely a small stroke. Despite the small set back in health, Abe was still active. He would circle his cage constantly, always clockwise, never making a right hand turn. This and sleep were how he passed most of his days, until last night when his time was up.

Abe was born in humble circumstances to two feeder mice (Squishy1 and Squishy2) that Justin had bought from a pet store in Lawton, Oklahoma. Here you can see him with his mother and siblings...most likely his earliest picture.

His parents passed away when he was quite young, as did all of his siblings except one brother leaving them orphans in Lawton, Oklahoma. In August of 2007 tragedy struck again when Abe's brother was lost in a car accident while moving of of Fort Sill into an apartment. His body was never found but is believed to rest somewhere inside the inner-workings of Justin's Jeep.

Now, alone, he spent most of his life in an apartment on Bishop Road, avoiding the ever-present eyes of his sister (Squishy, the cat) and learning to like attention from humans. He happily lived in his cage with his custom designed toilet-paper tube system which his adopted Dad made for him, stuffed with nestlets stolen from his adopted Mom's place of work. Even after the move this was his favorite place to slumber. Abe is survived by his adopted parents Allison and Justin Deming (Of Lubbock Texas, with Justing currently deployed to Camp Bucca Iraq), his foster Mother and Father Sonia Shah and Raine Mackey of Lubbock Texas, his sister cats Squishy of Salt Lake City, Utah; Cleo of Lubbock, Texas, and Borris & Greta of Lubbock, Texas. He was preceeded in death by his parents and two siblings.


Private services were held early Saturday morning, June 28th. Internment took place afterwards in the backyard of Sonia and Raine. Justin was unable to attend the service but wants to express his thanks to those who were a part of Abe's life. The world would be a better place with more mice like Abe. He will truly be missed.

Either death is a state of nothingness and utter consciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is to gain; for eternity is then only a single night.

~Plato~