Better to have loved and lost...

This is my rat baby Gamora! She's a black fancy rat with a chubby white tummy.
Here she is snuggled in her pineapple. I couldn't afford this pineapple addiction of hers as she'd tear one up each week!!

She loved crawling through sweatshirts, trying to find her way to the bottom... to freeeedoooommm!!

She loved tissue boxes more than anything else! Except yogies. Nothing is better than yogies.

Sleep rat baby. Sorry for potato.

More sleepy rat baby. I loved when she slept on her head like this. It was so freakin cute

She'd only ever pose INSIDE her cage because when she was out, she'd rather explore!

"But maaa, I had my cage how I liiiked iiit" she said as I was cleaning her cage.

She always ran up and down my arms (and gave me hives because I was allergic to her urine... didn't care, loved her anyways)

Ahh my pink hair phase... she didn't care. She loved me (or was it my garlic breath...?)

Here she is all tuckered out. She looks like a furry potato. A furtato. Nelly Furtato.

"You're putting me in here again?? Might as well pose for the camera... WHICH I NEVER DO"

"Uhh didn't you clean my cage LAST WEEK??" Gamora... I clean your cage every week!!

Her first Christmas she got an entire roll of toilet paper with treats stuffed in the middle then wrapped in wrapping paper. She LOVED it! I mean, look at that mouth!

This is her about two weeks ago. She clearly would not stay still for a photo, but I'm glad I did. These are the last images I have of her.
This past week she hasn't been herself and we should have caught it sooner given her previous medical history (multiple minor instances of mycoplasma), but I chalked her laziness up to being old. She's two and a half. This evening as I got home from college, she wasn't moving at all.
She was normally so very active hopping from platform to platform and now she was limp and breathing heavily.
We made the very difficult decision to put her to sleep so she could stop suffering and go play in the giant rat playpen in the sky.

RIP Gamora, Boopy, Ratbutt, Goofus, Rat Baby, my little angel... you truly are an angel now, and I'm going to miss your excited chitters, your playful scampering, your ungraceful plops, everything. You were sassy, loving, curious, and the best unconventional pet a girl could ask for.
See you on the other side.