BBKristopher.com

A few days before Christmas in 1997 I arrived in Dallas to visit Katherine for the first time. We had dinner at the Olive Garden, then drove back to her appartment in Denton. When we got there, six little pairs of eyes stared out at me from various spots in the room before vanishing with a speed to this day I still believe must have involved relativistic effects.

A few ours later, a large tortouise shell swaggered out, climbed up on to the bed and with a look of remarkable calm told me I could sleep on the floor. Katherine mentioned she had a bad back. I picked up Katherine's back massager and spent the next thirty minutes making a friend for life.

Persephone was the first of Katherine's cats to adopt me, and for eight years , one month, and a hand full of days, I've been her Brian. She scratched me, bit me, used me as a pillow and a drool mop. She's packed my keyboards with fur, put kinks in my neck, shoved me off a bed, and in hundreds of other ways been one of the best friends I've ever had.

This morning, at 8:30, for the first time in her life, she lost a fight. It wasn't a fair fight, the odds were stacked against her from the beginning, but when it became clear that the cancer had the upper hand, when she couldn't eat anything other than babyfood because her mouth hurt to much and the cancer was eating so much of her blood the vet said she'd need a transfusion within days, when the UGA vet clinic told us all they could do for her was radition therapy to relieve the pain, we decided not to make her suffer. We decided we had to let her go, because no matter how much we loved her and how big a hole it's left in our hearts and our lives, we couldn't put her through it for our sakes.

At 8:30 this morning, we held her in our arms and petted her and listened to her purr as the doctor gave her an injection. Her pain was gone by 8:31.

She died the way she lived. Surrounded by love, in the company of people who would do anything for her, and above all else, very, very happy. She was purring right up until the end.

I don't claim the be able to read minds, but I knew Persephone, and I can tell you her last thought.

"Two humans, no waiting. Life is good."

The world is a poorer place without her.