I'm going to go a little personal with this post. Nothing profound, don't worry. When I was about to turn 15, my parents divorced. We lived in a great apartment downtown: I went to school in the neighbourhood, all my friends were there, and until that point, I had never lived anywhere else. It's been a really difficult time: long story short, my father didn't agree to the divorce. He fought with all his power to keep everything as it was, being often very brutal. He ended up refusing to leave and keeping the apartment for himself. So my mum, my cat Freddy and I had to move to a new place, in a completely different neighbourhood. I felt uprooted and robbed of my own home, even if the new apartment was wonderful and in a very hip place. But as much as I loved living there, it didn't feel like home. In this new apartment, we had a balcony Freddy used to hang out on: from there, he could access a roof he could use as an additional sunbathing spot. We thought he was safe out on the balcony/roof, but one day he disappeared. We searched around and called his name for a week, but he was nowhere to…

I believe I’ve always had a good relationship with death. Not that it isn’t a sad event for me, or that I don’t suffer terribly from the absence of those I’ve loved—quite the opposite. But I’ve always accepted the fact that life has an end. Living with animals from a very young age meant that I experienced the end of life often as a child. I clearly remember the death of my first cat when I was five, and before that, the death of my hamsters. Then, great-grandparents, a cousin when we were both very little, and some friends. But above all, I saw the end of my animals' lives. Many years ago, I began accompanying them in their passing, every time I could, when it was the right thing to do. Almost all of them crossed the door to infinity in my arms. And I call it the “door to infinity” because the whole “rainbow bridge” story makes my blood sugar spike. Especially given how the ladies on social media use it. You know the kind of comments: “Fly high on the rainbow bridge, little angel!!”—followed by a flood of broken-heart emojis, rainbows, and fluffy clouds. Gee. Death: that inevitable thing no one accepts, and about which you’re not…