Sweets came to live with us when he was only 5 weeks old. Our son's cat, a tortoise shell named Sweet Buns have five little kittens...3 of which were tailess. The moment I saw that little white kitten, he was mine! I loved him from the very first time I saw him. At the time our cats were very old...Friday, a little black stray that came to live with us on Friday the 13th was 13 and Baby (Bawl Baby actually) was about 11. They didn't relish having this baby come to stay but they accepted him. I named the kitten Sweetsie...because I thought he was so sweet...well, that certainly was a misnomer because he was a wild man! He climbed the drapes, he leapt to the top of the doors, he shredded my couch....but I loved him. When Sweets was about 9years old, a friend found a little cat that had been abandoned. My husband said...."no more animals!" but when I brought the cat home, he was so pretty and so sweet. We tried to think of a good name for him and in the process, we decided the best name for him was the Great Odoriferus One...after he used the litter box the first time! and so he became Odie for short. Our grandson was only 6 years old and he coined him Odie Podie. Odie was an Elegant Slob...the most beautiful cream colored coat with dark chocolate markings on his face, feet, and tail. But you could always tell where he had been by the mess he left behind! Sweetsie was not happy with the new addition but in time, he and Odie became best friends. They ate together, slept together, and followed one another on visits in the neighborhood. Well just about a year ago, old Sweets developed cancer and we nursed him until we knew it was just to painful for him and finally had to have him put down. What a heartache that was...and still is. That night, at bedtime, Odie started crying. He never just meowed, it always sounded like he was saying "No..No..No". He missed old Sweets so much that he cried every nite for a week or more. And now today, our poor old Odie is sick and I know that the kindest thing we can do is to let him go. But my heart is just breaking. And so I thought again of that beautiful verse..."The Rainbow Bridge" because I truly feel that when God calls me home...that old Friday, and Baby, and Sweets,and Odie, and Dee Dee, and Kate, and Missy will all be there to greet me. The love those little creatures brought into our lives is beyond description...it breaks my heart to lose them...but the rewards of having them here were so great! I'll never forget them and I'll never stop loving them and I'll never stop missing them!