The Price of Mercy

In our day-to-day lives we are often given subtle opportunities to show mercy. Most of them are of no great significance; smiling at someone who does not smile back, taking a child’s lunch to school when they have forgotten it for the third time that week, being the first to say, “I’m sorry.”

We are also given opportunities to teach mercy. Compassion is a skill to be learned. The next generation will discover how to extend mercy by watching us extend it. And I’ve found the opportunities to teach mercy sometimes come when I least expect them.

Some years back, at the emphatic request of two of my sons, we took in two white rats from some neighbors who couldn’t keep them anymore. No other culture in the world probably understands why we Westerners voluntarily invite rodents into our houses, buy them vitamin-rich rat food, and house them in rainbow-colored cages. But my sons begged me to let them keep the rats and I agreed.

The previous family had given the rats aunt-like names: Doris and Arlyce. But the rats looked exactly alike and I couldn’t tell one from the other. Luke, our dog, who leered at the rats whenever they were brought into the kitchen for playtime, regarded them with the same disdain as he heaped on the cat. He acted like the rats were very small cats. So they we began calling them the Little White Kitties.

As the novelty of having new pets wore off and the boys stopped playing routinely with the Little White Kitties, I announced that they would have to give those rats daily attention or I would find them another home. I even began to ask around. No one was interested.

A co-worker at the newspaper where I worked told me not to fret when I told her the boys had lost interest and no one seemed to want the Little White Kitties. Rats don’t live long, she said. Sooner or later they will develop tumors and die.

She was joking.

But ironically one week later, one of The Kitties sprouted a package under her arm the size of an almond.