Today at 15:54, I agreed to end the life of a companion who had been present for me for almost 11 years.

He has been the only cat of the litter to purr in my arms when I came to see them, which earned us the chance to cross Shanghai several times to get him at the friend’s who put him under my care, after she brought another cat; that was him, not another.

The vet who saw him for the first and the last time today has been the only one to tell me things clearly, to offer me his opinion of his role as a cat in my life, and other things that deeply resonated in me.

To say the least, attachment was here from beginning to end and I want to believe that ending his life in the hands of this vet belonged to a logical way to go.

The body has its memory which will certainly fade, like any memory, but I want to remember his head diving into my hand, as if looking for a shelter, the appropriation of my arms by sleeping on them, hide‑and‑seek on the first morning, all cramped in the tiny space of the two‑blocks sofa he was, and the cavalcades in the Shanghai apartment’s stairs, among other things, but also seeing him run in the nature for the first time after we arrived in France, following a year 2016 which outcome was more than uncertain.

He ended his life in the grass, between flowers and under a bright, warm, blue sky, after leaving my arms to do his last stand, lying down with dignity and blow his last breath at my side.

I like the idea I’ve been the last one of us to scrape the earth to put him on his last bed.

你是过这么好运的小猫。你总是会到在我的心里。跑跑跑跑步把。