I'm gonna miss him very much...

I lost a very close friend yesterday... my red-tailed boa Ralph passed away. Some may find it silly that I am writing about a "pet" but I am truly morning him right now. I want to express to everyone what he meant to me so I am going to give his history and my own... so bare with me please...
When I was younger I had always shown an affinity for the natural world, I loved drawing dinosaurs and other animals so I was, naturally drawn to real thing. During my childhood my parents all saw this interest and fueled in all the ways they knew how. My father who had horses and livestock most of his life, my mother who was a naturalist and my step-father was always eager being an animal lover as well. We had always had pets like many families but I had the opportunity to become more involved with animals then most kids. I was apart of 4-H so I learned a lot about domesticated animals, we had horses, chickens, sheep, goats, etc. I remember getting my first personal fish tank when I was 12 or 13, I also helped run my mother's nature camp. I had been keeping local species of herps since I was about 11. I guess you could say this was all in my blood.
When I moved into my teens is really when I started getting the hands on experience that would bring me to Ralph. Like I have mentioned already I had been keeping local herps and invertebrates since I was pretty young so when I got into my teens and started making a little money from chores I really started getting into tropical fish. I had like 4 tanks in my room and I was breeding tetras and live-bearers... I was really learning a lot about how to properly take care of animals that weren't from where I grew up. This is where Ralph comes in. Rincon Valley is a suburb of Santa Rosa, Ca. At the grocery center near my house there was a pet store called Victoria's Ark, this is where I would buy most of my fish and supplies. The owners were very nice and would always talk to me like I was an adult... very important for someone like me at the time. Denise the stores owner would frequently order things specially for me.
Along with the typical things you would find at a local pet store denise would stock some live animals for sale as pets. He had a fish room where I sent most of my time, he had a few cages of birds in the front of the shop and a room identical to the fish room but for rodents (hamsters and the like). To back track off the subject slightly my sister and I had come to live with my mom, step dad and grandmother during the week for school then seeing my dad on the weekends. This all took place in 1989. It had always been fine that I had fish, rats, mice, birds, etc. I had never even considered any reptiles because my Grandmother had a true phobia of snakes... so up until about 1994 there hadn't been an issue.
So one day I walk into the Ark (I think it was 1994) to look at the normal stuff and for some reason I decided to go look at the rodent room. To my surprise sitting in a 10 gal tank was a red-tailed boa hatchling. He was barely even 12 inches long and about as big around as my thumb. I asked Denise about the snake and he told me he had just gotten him in and was looking to see if he could bring in a wider range of customers.
I went home and told my parents about the snake and how interested I was but because of Grandma's phobia there was no way. This was a heartbreak for me snakes were so cool and it had really never occurred to me to have one as a pet. So at least twice a week for the next... almost a year I would go into the Ark and look to see if Ralph was still there. I would pray that our community would stay as squeamish as they apparently were and someone wouldn't buy him. I think Denise really new how much I wanted Ralph he even let my mom and I borough him to do presentations at a science fair.
In late 1995 we moved out of our place with Grandma and to my delight I was going to be able to get the pets I want now but I didn't have any money... so Ralph would still stay a dream.
My dream came true before christmas that year. My sis and I had spent a few days with my dad in Cloverdale and when he brought us home to my mom and step dad's place there was a surprise waiting for me in my room. In a new 20 gal tank there was Ralph... apparently my parents had purchased him a while back and were waiting for the right time.
So my obsession with herps took off from there... I ended up working in pet stores and running them thru high school, I ran my own reptile breeding business... I had hundreds of reptiles and amphibians... I even became a zoo keeper... that is what I do for a living now... all because of that wonderful snake.
So at the age 15 Ralph went quietly... he was a little young so I can only assume he was taken by IBD. I had a die off of animals due to this disease when I was in the business and it is possible that Ralph had gotten it at this time and it had lay dormant. IBD is a disease in Boas and Pythons that is very much like HIV in humans. Whatever the cause it is terrible. Whatever it was that did it it happened fast so I can say from experience that he probably felt very little if any pain. Even so I cant help but wonder if I could have been a better keeper for him... I hope I was.
Anyway I want to thank anyone who spent the time to read this... it isn't well written because this is all very difficult for me, but I wanted to do it nonetheless.

So I just wanted to thank Ralph in the end... I miss you very much.

Here I found a pic of him when he was a neonate...
[link]

I will be looking for a pic to post of him soon...