To me, the "firsts" are always so intolerably difficult: the first day, the first week, month, year. . . . They encompass all the other firsts - birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. It's not necessarily easier after the first year, but at least we can tell ourselves that we survived this day before, and we can do it again.

I never refer to what my departed furkid "was." Whatever s/he *was* on Earth, s/he still is at the Bridge. The love, the affection, the sense of humor - they're all still there. Here's a little tidbit that might validate that: My Merlin was one of those very special cats; we were bonded. However, he never thought of me as "mom"; I was simply "the woman" who kept the litterbox clean and the food dish full. I never, ever doubted his superiority to me; obviously, I was the less intelligent one in our relationship. On the second anniversary of his transition to the Bridge, I released a balloon from a mountaintop near my cabin in WV; as I was driving back to the cabin on a one-lane unpaved road, I had to stop to let *two turkeys* cross in front of me! The significance did not escape me: turkeys are the stereotype for "stupid," and it was Merlin's *two-year* anniversary at the Bridge. I smiled, knowing that his sense of humor is intact.

Think of Fister that way: just the same wonderful fellow he was on Earth he is now, only enhanced, at the Bridge. Rest assured that Fister is forever all he ever was, only better.