We had to put our cat Dusty down Wednesday evening.

Dusty showed up at our previous house sometime around 2006 with his mother and two siblings. We gave one of the siblings away, but ended up keeping two. The trio became Chloe, the mother; Rusty, the sister; and Dusty, the brother. Rusty died a few years ago from feline immunodeficiency virus.

Dusty was diagnosed with lymphoma last week. His mother Chloe had been diagnosed with the same disease a couple of months ago. She had been eating like a pig but losing weight. The vet gave her a steroid injection, and it helped tremendously. She got a second shot just a couple of weeks ago. And then we noticed Dusty was not eating well, so we took him in. Same disease, and same shot. But the shot did not work for Dusty. A couple of days ago he became lethargic and refused his food. It got worse. On Thursday it was bad enough that we were going to take him to the vet, but I was tied up taking my aunt to the dentist. It was too late to take him in that day.

We considered taking him to the emergency veterinary clinic Tuesday night, but held off. Then Wednesday he was even worse. A doctor’s appointment kept us from taking him our vet, so we took him to the emergency clinic around 7 pm. After the examined him, they told us he was in the process of dying. We already knew that. So we made the only decision we could.

Dusty was probably the most even-tempered of all our cats. He tended to mind his own business. He didn’t roam, and he almost never had disagreements with the other cats. He was a little timid around me, less so around Leah. Like most cats, he spent a lot of time napping.

Sometimes he slept on the top step.

Sometimes his choices of places to nap and napping posture were comical.

His relationship with his mother was reasonably close.

This was taken a few years ago. More recently they tended to sleep in separate houses. A few days ago Chloe started sleeping with him again. Leah thinks Chloe knew something was wrong with Dusty.

We brought his little wasted body home, but it was too late to bury him. Tomorrow afternoon, after the rain stops, I’ll put him near Zeke and Lucy.

We know that Chloe will follow before too long. She’s doing pretty well now, but lymphoma is a death sentence.