The "Goodbye Until We See You Again1" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Just fed our two cats and walked to the back door to look out at the rear deck behind our home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  There stood "Big Bob" on the steps that lead up to the growth of trees to the rear of our property.  

Big Bob looking for a meal!

"Big Bob" is the name we gave to the stray cat that showed up at our back door for a free meal close to five years ago.  My wife Carol and I have no idea where he came from, but in no time he was a constant visitor to our back porch.  Perhaps he shows up because we feel sorry for him because we just can't see a stray cat, or any animal, go without food.  How would you feel if you were homeless and had nothing to eat?  We had thought that Big Bob had died since he hadn't stopped for a dish of food for close to half a year.  He looked to be close to death at that time and we just assumed he had died somewhere in the neighborhood.  Well, my wife yelled to me when she saw him sitting at the top of the steps behind our house.  Sure enough, it was Big Bob.  We put a dish of cat food out for him and before long it was empty.  It's been a week now and once again he's stopped coming to our back door.  We just assumed that someone else feeds him and gives him better meals, or perhaps he really did die this time.  We wanted to thank him one last time for the two stray cats that are our constant in-house guests.  We enjoy The Gray Lady and Snickerdoodle so much and they wouldn't be part of our family had it not been for Big Bob.  Will he show up again in the near or distant future?  Who knows!  He looks to be so old that he can't last another day, but just when we thought he had died months ago, he returned again.  Carol and I are certain that a few other neighbors must also feed him since he has been around for quite a few years now.  Perhaps he is visiting another home that has left-overs that are better than the canned cat food that we give him.  So...we will continue to check our back door to see if someone is looking for a hand-out in the future.   It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.