The "What Ever Happened To Big Bob?" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Looking out the bedroom window, trying to see if Big Bob might be on our garden stairs, waiting for me to get dressed and give him a morning meal.  Big Bob is a cat.  An old and big cat.  

Big Bob waiting for a meal!

We suspect that he might be the father of both Snickerdoodle and The Gray Lady, the two cats that we adopted a few years ago when they both came to our back door looking for a meal and sneaking in the door when we didn't get it closed immediately.  

Big Bob with Snickerdoodle as a young cat.

They have become two of the best cats we have ever had during our married lifetime.  The Gray Lady is a constant lap-sitter on my wife's lap while Snickerdoodle enjoys stretching out on my desktop while I write my stories for this blog.  For years Big Bob would make daily trips to our back door looking for a meal.  And suddenly he was gone.  A few weeks later he returned again looking for another meal, once again.  We finally decided that another neighbor must have doled out better food than we did, but had gone on vacation leaving Bob to return to our home.  

This is the Gray Lady as a kitten.  We opened the door and she never left!

During the winter months we even built him a small house under our brush at the top of our rear garden.  Stuffed the house with straw to act as a barrier from the cold weather.  We would see him from time to time coming from the direction of the house, so we knew he was making good use of the house.  Big Bob was a sorrowful soul.  He always groomed himself after eating, but he always looked as if he had rolled in a pile of dirt when he appeared at our porch.  He did have one ear snipped so we knew that he had been neutered, but evidently not before he fathered many of the neighborhood crowd of cats that all looked like him.  Well, it's been a few weeks now and we haven't seen him.  

The Gray Lady loves her home with us!

He has never been away from his handouts and his box for that length of time.  The last time we saw him he was struggling to walk, but still wouldn't allow us to come near him.  We hope that if he has died, that he did so without any pain and with a full belly.  He has been in the neighborhood for close to ten years now and having to withstand our harsh winters has taken a toll on him.  We will still call for him in the morning when we open the back door, but we suspect he will never return.  Before someone caught him and had him neutered, he fathered quite a few neighborhood kittens.  If all the others are as nice as the two that we have given a home to, he was a good father.  So, Big Bob, we wish you well and may you Rest In Peace!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.