Lexus's Obituary

It all happens in 3's, or so they say. The first thing shall remain a secret until such a time as I am allowed to tell (I'm not pregnant, so I might as well shoot that rumor down right now). The second thing was cited in Munchkin's last post. And the third thing (for me at least) was Lexus's passing, which happened today at approximately 12:30 in the afternoon. She's the capricious thing on the right:

Lexus was our little adventurer. She got into everything and acquired a few defining marks over her 2 years of life for it. She got in a scuffle with Clover not too long before this photo was taken and lost a bit-size piece of her right ear, but the two were litter mates and we never saw a sign of aggression before or after that point. She burned off her whiskers one time trying to smell a candle. She was constantly checking the exact distance between any surface and the floor when we didn't watch her close enough. She got lost inside my blue writing couch once and we had to create a small escape hole for her to get out. She escaped her cage a few times, and she usually found us before we figured it out--usually we'd be sitting there watching a movie and eating popcorn when she'd pop up on the ottoman with this innocent "Can I have some?" look on her face. That always made us laugh.

Much like Kate and Emma, our last two rats, I was with her during her death process. She was a little lethargic over the last three days, but by all accounts had been improving for the last two. I would have had her into the vet in a heartbeat if I thought she was getting worse or that the problem was fixable. We shelled out more than $400 last summer to have her mammary tumor removed. She was eating and drinking and here digestive processes were still functioning, and she came when called and still happily greeted us when we came to the cage. The only indicator was the lethargy, her age, and the fact that she kept crawling away to dark corners when we had her out of the cage. I was once told (when my childhood cat started exibiting this behavior) that it's an animal's last gift to loved ones to do this--they know the end is near, and they try not to foul the living space with their decaying corpse, so they seek solitude. From the lack of symptoms, I think it was just her time to go.

I kept her hydrated and gave her company, and honestly I thought she was acting better, so I went upstairs to get dressed for work. During the ten minutes I was gone, Lexus passed; I knew it was going to happen, but I still cried. For me and Mr. B, our rats are like our children.

Lexus had a wonderful life and was our little ADHD adventurer through our graduation from college, our marriage, the purchase and fixup of a house, and everything else that happened to us over the last two years. People always said they thought she was a very pretty rat because she was this very light tan color (not brown--in the rat industry I think it's called 'faun'). She was Mr. B's rat to name because I had named Clover; when I asked him what we were going to name her we were driving behind a similarly colored Lexus on the highway, and being the creative guy he is, that's what he chose. It was a fitting name after all, because she was always on the move.

She only briefly met Emma when we got her February 7, 2007. Kate had died on the 4th, and we didn't want Emma to have to live alone. Emma played a wonderful surrogate Mommy to little Lexus and Clover until she died on the 14th, only ten days after her cagemate (yes, on Valentine's day). So then we had two baby rats to ourselves. We haven't decided yet if we're getting more rats to keep Clover company, and we won't be rushing that decision. Clover's pretty much a lap rat and she's very happy with human company, but she's already showing signs of missing Lexus.

Alula