Last night a grand dame of the cat world left us. Princess was the cat of my friend Neil Gaiman. She was a once-wild, wonderful, fierce, old lady with a mean streak a mile wide and fur like white silk. She sent more than one person to the hospital, and spilled my blood on at least one memorable occasion. She was beautiful and tough and more than half a creature of faery. She was also my friend—I visited her nearly daily while borrowing Neil’s running paths—and I loved her dearly. I will miss her, as I know Neil will, along with a whole lot of other people. She touched many lives in her twenty-two-plus years. Because I haven’t the heart for words right now, here are some of my favorite pictures of her (a few have captions because they insisted on it, but most don’t):
This is the very first picture I ever took of her in January of 2011
She loved to drink out of the tap, and insisted that the humans oblige her
She wasn’t often cuddly, but was very fierce about it when she was
This is my favorite shot of her
Because some pictures must be shared
She started drinking out of my glass when she was too tired to go down to the sink
Simply beautiful
She was so fierce
Pretty sure she was trying to figure out how she’d reach the gas pedal
With her long time housemate Coconut
Sleeping in the library
Claiming me for her own
And this is the last picture I took of her—napping on my lap shortly before leaving us
Goodbye Princess, you had a hell of run