I don't get too attached to animals. I like 'em, and I like having them around, and I enjoy their presence, but it's silly to waste too much emotion on them. So I'm writing this more for the "awwwe" factor than the "I'm sad and must reflect" factor.

We often let our two cats, Rufus and Roscoe, outside to roam. Otherwise they got all edgey and bored. Which would, to steal an idea from the comic Get Fuzzy, result in a band-aid moment. Rufus re-appeared after a few hours, where Roscoe did not. Which wasn't nessisarily unusual. He sometimes waited until morning to re-appear.

However, when the next morning rolled around, there was no cat. I did not worry about it because cats are cats. You can't really expect them to do anything the way you think it should be done. By noon my mom was vaguely worried. It was still too soon for me to waste any thought on it.

Three days later and I did my own version of worry. My mom and sisters walked around the neighborhood, call his name, hoping to find him perhaps caught in a tree or caught in a bush somewhere. Nothing.

The whole thing climaxed when a note from a neightbor several streets away left a note on our door. Simply stated, she found our cat dead in her back lawn (which faced the street), and that she was sorry (even though she had nothing to do with it).

So yesterday after work I got home and helped my sister dig a hole in the ground. The vet said to make it three foot deep. Yeah right. We got it to perhaps two and a half foot before being too exhausted to be able to dig through the clay and stone any farther. My mom said a few words for the benifit of my sisters and then I replaced the dirt.