01 Aug My dear sweet Riley,
“I don’t know how I will bear never again having your soft peaches-and-cream little body next mine as I sleep, seeing your “up periscope” tail waving in the air, watching you place each paw precisely in the same spot as you strolled, and laughing over the way you always wanted to “play sheet” when I made the bed and get your “poof on” as I fluffed the comforter. Your silent meow as you smacked your mouth open like Marley’s ghost, your obsession with trying to eat every plastic bag you could find as if you were some kind of goat, your feisty attitude that covered the trust issues you had when I first adopted you all melted my heart then, and break it now. If there is an afterlife, may you join all the others that once were together with us and those that came before you. As the Welsh say, “You were the blood of my heart.”