I had lost my first cat Helena and within a couple of weeks I was longing for a new companion. Some searching happened at local pet shelters. I finally found my Zoe through a classified ad. It was a sunny spring day in late May, with a light breeze blowing, when I first met her. Lane had already given away the rest of the litter and Zoe was left. She told me Zoe was the sweetest little cat and would've kept her except she already had a menagerie of two dogs, four cats, and two little boys.

Lane brought her to a park in a carrier and encouraged me to pick her up and hold her. She was a pure white kitten with birth markings and of abyssinian and siamese mix. At seven weeks, she was still very tiny. I picked her up and held her. To my surprise, she shook like a leaf, but calmed down in a matter of seconds. Lane was amazed at how she took to me immediately.

A couple of days later, I picked her up in my large carrier, which was like a house for her tiny little body. Complete with her toy bird, pillow, and blanket, we came home. In a first picture I took of her that night, she looked like she was coming home from the hospital.

We bonded around playing with the cat dancer. For those of you who don't know about this play toy, cats love it. It is made of a long wire with a little cardboard object at the end of it. You can manipulate it to simulate a flying bird or insect. She went crazy for it and we played until either her or I were worn out. She began crying during the night and I discovered that putting her in the carrier calmed her.

The next morning when I took her out and put her down on the floor, she began pacing back and forth like a caged tiger, which is what I'm sure she felt like. But I believe she was also angry about being taken away from her big family too soon. She honked like a duck as she paced for minutes on end, getting her frustration out of her system. From then on she adjusted well.

She was a very athletic cat and as a kitten she could jump over three feet off the ground! I knew this because she jumped right next to the door and I measured it. Her name Zoe means life in Greek and the name suited her perfectly. To me she was the breath of life and in my grief I sometimes feel like I can't breathe. She was full of mischief and couldn't pass any surface without knocking over an object, which she did constantly. I knew I had an imp on my hands and she would challenge me her entire life, and she did.

This little report of our first days together has been written on the fly, and it has helped me today to feel better by sharing my thoughts about her with all of you other grieving owners. I cannot contemplate getting another cat for a long while. It's been barely two months and the grief is worse than ever, because of the holidays arriving. My place is decorated in red and gold and looks really pretty. It symbolizes the passion I had for her and how wide she opened my heart with her unconditional and sweet love. I know she is with the angels up in a golden heaven and they are all madly in love with her. Nobody who ever met her could not help falling in love, she was so very beautiful and precious. I miss looking at her very much. I hope my thoughts about my precious baby give some comfort to those in this community who are hurting about a recent loss. Know that the holidays are more difficult than the rest of the year. They bring out all the emotions of connections we feel for human and animal loved ones like no other time of the year.