My sweet Gershwin found me as a kitten, weened too early, and as I bottle fed him he became my 'baby.' He saw me through my entire adult life, many upheavals, including losing his two puppy sisters, and I helped him pass peacefully at the end of a quick decline from an acute onset of kidney failure, just a month before he would have turned 21. He lived a long life, was healthy and happy for almost all of it, and I feel very lucky for that. But his loss is a huge hole in my heart. He was my little spirit guide, and I can't imagine a world without his spirit in it.