My little buddy passed away on Friday, so I made an album of his life.

This is Goose. We picked up this baby southern flying squirrel four years ago off of the garage floor, barely living.

We initially wanted to rehabilitate him and release him back, but he grew on me quickly.

This is the story of my pet through college, as best as I can tell it through what pictures I have.

He slept in my pockets when he was younger!

He tried milk once.

So after deciding to keep him, I whipped up this little cage for him.

He quickly made a giant mess and proceeded to burrow into it.

He ate a LOT of stuff.

He liked to climb all over me, especially on the inside of my shirt. Yes, that's me, a year out of high school looking like a baby.

He quickly earned the name "Goose", being the best wingman anyone could want!

I've been his tree for the last four years.

It's been awesome. Most people didn't believe me when I said I had a pet squirrel. Even less when I said it was a flyer!

He kept going behind the couch cushions and popping up in various places.

I could never imagine such a small thing could have such a huge effect on me.

He began to outgrow his custom cage after about a year. So my mom took it upon herself to pick out and buy a flyer cage! Super roomy for activities.

He took to it quickly, but wouldn't leave the safety of his log for a couple hours.

I woke him up one morning. Flyers are nocturnal and sleep most of the day. But I couldn't resist seeing that face sometimes!

When my hand got close he would always reach out with his tiny little hands and grab my fingertip, which covered his whole hand.

This was one time when he fell off of my shoulder and reached out as he fell! luckily I caught him before he hit the ground (not that it would hurt him), but he grabbed my knuckle on the way down.

This little squirrel had more personality than most people I know. Sometimes he would climb off the curtains and dart up the stairs, but stop and look back until I got up to chase him. He would make me get up and chase him up the stairs and down the hall over and over sometimes, like a game he had invented for us to play.

He got into the kitchen cabinet, but we just pulled out the jar he was in, resulting in one of my favorite pictures of him.

The next two were taken on Tuesday, April 7th, 2015. I hadn't had him out in a while, so decided to hang out with him for a little bit that night. Over the last 4 years I've taken hundreds of pictures, videos, snapchats, etc, but this is all i could find of him. I really wish I had more now.

Nothing could have prepared me for what was coming in three days.

I went to clean his cage on Friday, April 10th and found his lying in the bottom corner of the cage, face down, eyes closed, only barely moving every few seconds, almost rhythmically. We had no clue what was so wrong, so suddenly. All symptoms pointed to severe calcium deficiency, which we began treatment for. Improvement should usually be seen over a few hours.

This is the second to last time I held my little buddy. He was so weak, his little hand was barely able to squeeze my finger. I lost it and sobbed uncontrollably. I felt so helpless.

Goose died around 1:00 AM that morning, on April 11th, 2015 at the age of 4. He slept in this little gourd, his bed that he spent most of his life in. I dug a small hole in the backyard, packed his gourd with the nice, new fluff he loved, and sent him to bed one last time. I've had pets die before, but they were all family pets. This was MY first pet, and this sudden bullshit hit me harder than anything before. He was my wingman, and I was his tree.

Credit: gdub695.