A month ago, a rat chewed her way out of her box, making it so I had to drive down a curvy road, holding her in one hand. I ran inside, handed her to Cami and said, "Meet Hermione, she lives up to her name." It was then that Cami pointed out that she had three paws, and her nick name, "The Three Paw Wonder Rat" was born. She wasn't a replacement for Artemis, but seemingly a gift. This was only confirmed when I heard Hermione singing like Artemis. Last week, she was tooting out what sounded like the intro to "Lift" by Poets of the Fall, the song Cami and I call our song.The past few days have been rough for us. Persephone took ill again, and Hermione started growing what we thought were tumors. They seemed benign, so we focused on Persephone, and ended up buying two rex babies and Aphrodite, who instantly took to Hermione, along with our rex girl, Precious. Winnie Winthrope, our "second" Artemis wouldn't leave Hermione alone, ever, either. This morning, everything seemed fine.
Cami and I went to do some stuff, got some things for work, and bought two other rexes (Cream ended up being a boy, so we didn't want him alone). We come home to find Winnie and Hermione huddled together. Hermione had lost weight, and her face had swollen. As it turned out, she didn't have a tumor, it was an abscess in her lymph node, and she was in pain. Tonight, Hermione died.
We are both devastated, but there was nothing we could have done. The infection had spread to her eyes, making one of them bulge. When we found out that she had one paw missing, I knew that she wouldn't live long due to the... "mutation," a word that I despise, but applies here. To us, Hermione wasn't different; she was our special little baby. Yesterday, she was climbing her new cage, happy that Cami was cheering her on. When Persephone was sick, Hermione chirped what sounded like "Lean On Me." What's even better is how almost every rat that met her instantly loved her. Precious would not leaver her side at all last night. Winnie was with her all day, and has been taking it hard. Aphrodite went to Winnie after Hermione died, and Winnie put her head on Aphrodite's shoulder.
Athena is also taking it as rough as we are, and has been licking both of us. Being no stranger to loss (she was Artemis's buddy), she's running around checking on the other babies. But, strangely enough, like Artemis, Hermione left us a bit of a surprise gift: the rat babies that we got today, rexes Bear and Duke. As it turns out, luckily for us and our babies, "Duke" is actually a "Dutchess."
Goodbye, Hermione. I love you and Artemis and Demeter so much, but I know you will all love each other. I know because I honestly think you were a gift from Artemis, if not Someone else.
