For the next 5,019 days I was blessed with being best friends with the most loving, caring, responsive, and affectionate cat I had ever met. So many of the memories over those nearly fourteen years pain me deeply now. Losing him on the evening of February 6, 2022 is the most heartbreaking pet loss I have ever had to go through. It's new and raw as I write this, and Sue's and my tear ducts are getting a helluva workout. But knowing grief as I do, I know those memories that today beget sobbing will in time yield to the happy ones where sobs will be replaced by smiles.

One--the only--comforting aspect of this terrible voyage is knowing there was no suffering. He crossed that Rainbow Bridge painlessly and lovingly in the arms of his adopted Mommy.

I love you Gooch-man, and I'll never stop. You are one of a kind; there will never be another like you. Your unconditional love, your unique ability to instinctively understand when I needed you near were--no overstatement--gifts from God. I thank Him for you, and I fervently pray that someday on the other side you and I can pick up where we left it. Whatever and wherever the place is that you are now, know always how much you are missed, how deeply you are loved.