Around Town With Joy Kingsbury: I Lost a Friend

You know what it’s like to lose a friend.  It is a sad time and a very all-alone feeling.

She let me live in her house for almost 19 years.  She loved me without question, tolerated my bad habits and placidly slept through my spells of absence and neglect.

She tucked me in every night and stayed around ‘til I went to sleep.

She did ask me to cook for her.  I really didn’t do much more than open a can and fill a dish.

Lately she has been telling me that she would have to leave me. I begged and pleaded to no avail, and finally let her go.

Her first stop was at the veterinary hospital in Pleasant Hill, then on to the veterinarian school at the University of Oregon to see if she may be able to help other kitties.

From there she would be off to chase butterflies in heaven.

It’s a lonesome world without her, but she left me the house.

Oakridge real estate broker and business leader Joy Kingsbury is secretary of the Highway 58 Herald board of directors. She writes a frequent column about life on the Upper Willamette.