Good job, L-Pink
I needed that. I've been bummed out the last few days after having to bury a sweet stray kitty that had taken up at my house. I think it was my neighbors indoor cat that had gotten out about a month before they moved. I reached out to them telling them that I thought their cat had returned, and never heard back from them. No idea how it died - I didn't inspect it closely as it had obviously been dead for at least a couple of days.
Add to that that I released the squirrel I had raised a couple of weeks ago, and have not seen her lately. The first couple of weeks after release I saw her every day when I went out to feed her (you have to continue to provide food for them for the first year of release). She would jump from a tree onto me, or up on my leg and scamper up to my shoulder to hang out, though I tried to limit this interaction. Anyway, I'm not sure if the smell of decomp drove her away or what, but I estimate that I stopped seeing her around the same time the cat died.