Today marks one year since my cat Bertie went over the Rainbow Bridge. It feels so long ago but also feels just like it was yesterday. I still miss him.

I hadn’t seen my girlfriend in person since October as we’ve dealt with helping out with family emergencies and being very cautious about COVID-19. Thankfully nobody’s come down sick – we’ve been helping out with errands and dog-sitting and things of that nature since August – but because we’re being extra-cautious (or as it should be called: plain-old cautious, as there’s no “extra-” when it comes to protecting others during a pandemic) about spreading the virus, we hadn’t seen each other in months. I finally got to meet up with her earlier this week and since we had spent Christmas apart we had a second Christmas early in January, and LOOK WHAT SHE GAVE ME:

She commissioned a pet portrait of Bertie and gave me a 12″x18″ canvas of him! It’s so cool and such a touching gift. I’ll have to find a nice place in my apartment to put it on display. It makes not seeing each other for Christmas a little sweeter that I can unveil this amazing portrait of him on Bertie Memorial Day.