R.I.P. Toto

Toto didn’t want to go to the vet. She passed in her sleep sometime late Friday night. Thankfully, she chose her final sleeping place to be under my step-father’s old Singer sewing machine in the craft room, rather than behind the refrigerator in the laundry room, which is where she usually went when she wanted to be alone, or just get away from JJ The Rambunctoid.

Per my previous post, she was never the cat you see in the cat food commercials. For at least the first half of her life, she was The Rambuctoid. You never turned your back on her. She went out as she came in. She must have figured out that time was limited, and she must have wanted to remember what it was like to be the “bad cat.” So even though she was now deaf as a post and a little wobbly, for the last couple of weeks she drank out of your glass if you weren’t looking. She hopped up onto the counters – right in front of you, no less – and strolled the entire length, looking for a crumb, for a pan you might not have washed right away and that she might find tasty, a glass she could squeeze her head into and then knock over and either spill or break or both. Between you and me, you know what? Good for her! I hope that’s the way I go out, too.

We buried her in the hummingbird/butterfly garden in the backyard. I still don’t know if that sort of thing is legal, but that’s where we buried Tigger a couple of years ago, and I didn’t think she’d mind the company.

As I knelt over her grave, planting some hummingbird/butterfly flower seeds, I heard a funny, squeaky twittering, and then a very loud buzzing at my left ear. I turned my head very slowly and discovered – not the huge horsefly I was afraid of – but that I was face-to-face with a juvenile male Rubythroated Hummingbird! You see, I put out the feeders a couple of weeks ago, just in case, but I hadn’t seen one and was beginning to wonder if there would be any, this year. A week before, MJ and I saw one sitting high in the top of the ackee tree, but it didn’t come down to feed, so I had my doubts, but put fresh nectar in the feeder anyway. Still nothing. Now, surprise!

I had several other “close encounters” that afternoon, and thought that, since he was letting me get that close, I should at least attempt to get a picture. This photo is a fluke of a still shot. I’ll never be able to do that again.

I don’t know anyone who has seen a hummingbird in real life who isn’t – at least for that moment in time – awed and amazed. It’s a universal truth: Hummingbirds make you smile – no matter what.