And now there are three.....

Early this afternoon, I carried Rusty from the backyard deck to the screen-porch..... I thought he might like to spend some time in there with AngelBoy, ShadowBaby and Mickey Kitty. AngelBoy cuddled up to Rusty right away.... AngelBoy has always cuddled up with Rusty when they're close together. ShadowBaby only cuddles up with either me or my husband or young Miss C, so he just sniffed around Rusty and then walked away. And little Mickey Kitty just kept his distance, not wanting to get too close, I guess. Mickey probably still remembers when Rusty kept hissing at him when he was still such a tiny kitten. When we found Mickey last year, Rusty wasn't in the mood to be hospitable to yet another kitten.

We took Rusty to the vet's office for the four o'clock appointment today. Just like yesterday, Rusty didn't howl in the car, not even a tiny meow. When we got to the office, we opened the door to his carrier, but he didn't come out. Rusty wasn't walking too much today, and when he was able to get up, he could barely walk a few steps.

I held myself together for all of the day, until we got Rusty to the vet's. Then my eyes started to tear up and of course I started to wonder if we were doing the right thing. Of course we were, but that reality is harder to face when it's about to happen.

Our friend and vet explained to us what he'd do to Rusty........ I decided not to stay in the room, but my husband wanted to stay with Rusty till the end. I waited out in the car....... and what a beautiful day it turned out to be. This morning's dreariness disappeared before noon-time, and the sun was out, the sky was blue, the temperature was nice and warm.... a perfect day. For us, if not for Rusty.... Somehow, today's trip to the vet would've been even sadder on a rainy, drippy day.

The backyard is cat-less now.... and the open part of the covered deck no longer has Rusty's bed and food dishes out there. AngelBoy and ShadowBaby have been out in the yard for just a few minutes, when we got home from the vet's office. I don't think ShadowBaby will be looking around for Rusty, but I'm sure that AngelBoy will miss him out there when he goes out into the yard every morning after his breakfast.

My husband asked me today if there was anything special about Rusty that I would always remember. It didn't take me too many seconds to come up with the answer--- Rusty and the rain puddles. Rusty was always a true outside cat.... he would rather drink water from puddles than from a bowl. No matter how young he was or how old he got, no matter how fresh the water in his bowl, if there was a rain puddle in the yard (or a puddle from the sprinkler) Rusty would always prefer to drink that water. I used to tell him to stop being such a hobo-cat, but he would keep on lapping up the water from the puddles. Rusty was a cat's cat... a guy cat..... a man's cat.

And my husband was the one who saved Rusty from being named "Marmelade." When we first found Rusty, I looked at the color of his fur and thought he looked like someone dipped him in a vat of orange marmelade........ so I suggested that we call him Marmelade. My husband said that no cat of his would be named Marmelade. So he named the cat Rusty, because of his "rusty" color, and also because there was a baseball player named Rusty Staub. (I think that's the correct spelling of his last name.)

That's how Rusty became Rusty...... We'll miss him. He was a part of our little family for more than twelve years.