End of an era

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At least at my house. On April 26, 2002 I was coming home from work when just before I unlocked the front door I heard a loud, kitten mew. I stopped in my tracks and looked around. No kitten in sight. At that time I had this dead ground that once had a few things growing in it, but hadn't for some time. I had stacked some cinder blocks up and then put some fake ivy there so it didn't look as dead as it was. I opened the front door, put my stuff inside and then went kitten hunting. There, behind the cinder blocks and under the fake ivy I found a little yellow kitten. I knew he was really too young to be away from his mother and I guess he was between 3 and 5 weeks, probably closer to 4. I knew he needed to go right to the vet, and my vet closed at 5:30. I went in to tell Connie (Maggiepie), who was my roommate at the time, that I needed to go to the vet. She wanted to know why and I showed her the baby. She always was a soft touch for kittens and sob stories, so I told her that after I ran him by the vet I'd let her really visit with him. Mind you, I wasn't sure what sex he was just yet, but 4 out of 5 orange cats are male, so I was just guessing the sex. I grabbed my purse, jumped back in the car and took off. Well, he weighed a pound and that put him right at 4 weeks old. He was also a little dehydrated and running a slight fever. The next day my across the street neighbor told me that they had seen him down around the wheel of his car when he was going to work. His wife, who is terrified of cats/dogs/animal, came out and directed him so he wouldn't run the baby down. He didn't say he put the kitten in my yard, but I hate to think that this little kitten crossed the street on his own sometime during that morning/day. Connie named him Ta Shueh, meaning "Walks on snow" because of his white feet, but we always called him just Taj. He was also the last cat that Connie ever named here. Well, yesterday Taj went to the Rainbow Bridge. Fly free my sweet boy, I hope you get to see Connie and can go back to driving her crazy "twanging" her elastics.