An all too loud echo.

Goddamn, it's been a tough year to be a cat around here.

One of the things I really enjoy about where I live is having four distinct weather seasons. They're all too hot, too cold, too wet and too dry, but they're distinct.

Fall has slid in very nicely this year, with that special, fresh crispness it brings to the cooler air.  The sun rests lower on the horizon and disappears into the night, hours before it did just sixty days ago.

Last week, the occupant of the other half of the duplex I reside in, took her cat into the veterinarian and had her euthanized.  The cat was twelve.

The cat had been healthy for years, but was quickly overcome by symptoms that were eerily close to what befell my Rudy half a year ago: rapid weight loss, vomiting and litter box issues.  An all too loud echo.

The day before the last day of its life, that cat answered to her name quickly, purred vigorously as I held it and readily snapped up the moist Pounce I offered it.  There was too much life left in that cat to kill it.  I found that sad.

Supposedly the cat was suffering from multiple ailments, most seriously of which was a thyroid condition that would require around $50 a month to keep healthy.

I'm grateful that I never had to enter that particular parlor of hell, where a cost-benefit analysis decided the fate of my beloved pet. I hate the idea of a pets lifespan defined and decided by dollars and cents.

Rest well, cat.  Just know that if you had been mine, you'd still be here eating Pounce and kicking sand.