This photo is very special because it documents the moment I met one of the dearest companions in my life, Pixie. 

When (human big C) Cat first moved to Australia, we lived in my dear little flat in Alderley.  We both loved swimming at the beach and would often journey down to the Gold Coast beaches via two trains and a bus. We realised if we moved to somewhere in the inner south of Brisbane, we could cut out one train journey each way, and about an hour, from our beach trips. We started looking around in the inner South for somewhere to live, and eventually found our place in Highgate Hill. It is right next door to the Brisbane suburbs of West End, and South Brisbane, local centres of community, culture and vegan food. We found our home here .

As an unexpected part of this move, we gained a third family member. The previous owners of the place we were moving into contacted us and said they had a little six-year-old (feline little c) cat who they didn't want to take with them, but were having difficulty rehoming. They said they would probably take her to the RSPCA, where cats have a 1 in 3 chance of being put down. We thought about it, a meeting was organised between Cat and cat to see whether Cat's cat allergies would be triggered and whether they would connect. Of course, instant love blossomed, and we agreed to take her into our lives.

This was not without some trepidation. Cat and I are both cat people, but we are also both vegans.  I wasn't convinced that a vegan diet has been proven healthy for cats, so I realised I would have to feed her murdered animals, and this was a major affront to my ethics. From a utilitarian point of view, we should have let her go to the RSPCA. Part of what swung it was that we felt we were interlopers moving into her house. We also felt the other options were for someone else to take her, in which case no animals would have been saved, or she would be put down. There is a lot more I could say here, but I chose what was in my self-interest, and what I felt were those of the cat, and I will always have some guilt about that.  

So we agreed to keep the little grey cat, but we were going away somewhere that we couldn't get out of.  The people in the house wanted to move before we got back, but said they would have their son feed the cat for the couple of days in between. For some reason, Cat couldn't be there when we got the keys, so I got them and went to the house. I took a video of opening the door for Cat, and then went outside to look for this cat I had never seen. The sons version of feeding her apparently meant cutting the top off a food sachet and throwing it outside; it would have been very hard for her to open the package fully, poor little one. I put some dry food in her bowl and then heard some rustling from the little garden at the back, and then she came up onto the deck. This photo is of that moment.  It is lovely to have a photo of the moment when meeting one of the great beloved friends in your life.

So now I've not yet named her, because the name the people had given her was a little insulting and ridiculous. She was riddled with fleas when we got her, and we think the name they gave her was partly due to the erratic behaviour when being bitten by fleas. Cat heroically dealt with that flea problem, and also gave her a proper, kinder name, Pixie. It suited her perfectly, though we often made variations on it: Pickle we liked, Prickle for a brief period when she sat in the same pot as an incredibly spiky cactus, and of course other names like little one, little sweet, my darling, our darling and so on.

Today, 10 1/2 years later, on the same deck, only a step away from where this photo of our first meeting was taken, two lovely Vets gave Pixie an overdose of anaesthetic, and I watched the light slowly leave her eyes. She was 17 years old and still beautiful and loving to the end. Her last hours we spent together sitting on the floor, waiting for the vet. I could see she was in pain, but all she would take was a little water. I stroked her while she purred, both of us offering consolation to each other. I really didn't think about what was going to happen during this time; I just worried about her and hoped for the vets to come quickly to help her. When the vets came, it only took a short time for them to diagnose her and say that Pixie's time should come to an end. As I said, I should have realised this was likely but just hadn't, and so it was something of a shock, and the poor Vets had to deal with me immediately grieving, though they were incredibly kind. Sadly, Cat couldn't be there again, though we video-called so she and Pixie could see and hear each other in those final moments. Watching Pixie's face as she went through the final injections and her death was overwhelming. Watching her face, always so full of life, love, and questioning, go dull was not something I will ever forget. It felt like there was some cosmic symmetry to the place and manner of Pixie and me meeting and parting, together in these major moments in both our journeys, on that same small part of the deck. 

Today has been a very sad, emotional day. It has seemed incredibly long, like a series of crowded hours with my thoughts and memories of Pixie. I never really knew how much my mental world in the house was about hoping to see her. These are all very tiny things in themselves. As an example, I have realised that when my eyes glance past our closed front door, made of frosted glass, I hope to recognise her silhouette through it. I did this, but was never fully conscious of it until the hope of it was gone. Now, because my mind hasn't yet stopped hoping for the small happiness of seeing her silhouette, the little, unbidden anticipatory emotion is followed by a feeling of great loss. This is just one of a thousand similar things; the presence of her absence is everywhere. Washing her food bowls for the final time was incredibly sad. Every part of this house has her image overlaid on it, of something dear she would do, even just something she would do because she was so dear to me. I posted a message about her passing on social media to let people know, and many people have sent an emoji or made a kind comment. We are often reminded that people can be lovely in times of loss. It has also been a day of reflection about the intersection of 3 lives. How much Cat, Pixie, and I loved, shared and gave to each other. Watching Pixie and Cat love each other was also one of the great privileges and pleasures of my life.

Now, as far as most relationships go, I have a patchy record full of mistakes and irreconcilable misunderstandings. When I reflect on almost all of them, the memories are mixed with some sadness and discomfort more than I am comfortable with. To take a significant portion of someone's life, their single journey, their one chance at existence, is a heavy responsibility, a responsibility I have rarely consistently fulfilled to my potential. I spend too much anxious time in my head at the best of times, and I have always worried whether I have treated the sentient beings in my life as well as I should have, or at least as they think I should have. It has taken me until late middle age to feel quite good about one. I think maybe I have finally got one right enough that I look back on it mostly with positive emotions. As I said to Cat today, I feel we were a really beautiful part of Pixie's life, that we both loved her as she deserved to be loved, from the first moment to her last. In this world, not every being gets to be loved as they deserve to be, but I hope to some full measure Pixie did. That doesn't mean I think I was perfect, but I feel in the way she would look at me and interact with me, that she felt safe and secure with me, even as anxious as she was. She was and will always be my little darling, and we were something important and overwhelmingly positive in each other's lives.

I took a final photo of her after she had passed. I went into Google Photos and used the clever recognise thing, and it found many photos of Pixie. Strangely, the two it didn't find were the two I was looking for.  This one above, when we first met, maybe because her face is obscured by the food bowl.  The other photo that didn't recognise her was the one I took after she had passed. Maybe this was because the light had gone from her beautiful eyes, which were such a defining part of her.

Anyway, I am broken now. If anyone reads this, I am sorry if it is a bit of a disconnected ramble, but it is at least a real expression of how I am feeling. I still cannot process that Pixie is gone from my life, she is so present in my thoughts it feels she must exist still...but I wanted to write something down while the emotions are raw and fresh. I will miss her softness against me, the way she would snuggle up next to me in bed, her little sweet noises, all of her different purrs, her sweet snoring, her calling to me to lift her onto the bed, the soft blink she would give me from amid the front garden when I would return home, the way she would wait for me on the landing in the middle of our stairs as we came down in the morning for a little pat session before going down the second half of the stairs, the way when I would come to bed she would get up and come over for her good night pats before I had even had a chance to lay down. I could list things like this for another few pages. I feel profoundly lucky to have experienced all of these things, this being, her connection, and as much as this moment hurts, I know it hurts so much because of how beautiful so many moments we shared together were.

And so what to do with this pain? I guess the only thing fitting is have it remind me to try to love more.