It's never easy. Hold her close in your heart and memory.

Right after I lost Foolish at age 16 after an 8 year illness, I read the first line of an essay by Robert James Waller (the guy who wrote "The Bridges of Madison County"). Foolish had been my best friend through the last years of my first marriage, a rather turmultuous divorce, job shake-up, scramble to find a place to live, miscellaneous crises of a single woman, the meeting, courtship, etc. leading up to marrying Curmudgeon, etcet, etcet. In short, he'd been with me through more stuff and longer than Curmudgeon had at the time.

Anyway, what Waller wrote was, "He was young when I was young, and old when I was middle-aged." And that's when I bawled my head off.

It's been over 10 years and I still think about Foolish (and his brother Marmalade) every day -- even though I'm surrounded by other possessive moggies.

Linn