And I'm Welcome to Food for Thought. My name is Colleen Patrick Gudrow from Compassionate Cooks.

I founded Compassionate Cooks to empower people to make informed food choices

and to debunk myths about vegetarianism and animal rights. You can learn more about

who we are and what we do by visiting our website compassionate cooks.com

where you can also support our work by becoming a member of the Compassionate cooks club.

Today's podcast is a special one and I hope you'll indulge me.

I decided not to have any letters or sponsorship recognition or membership recognition

today because I'd like to make it just about the story of the life and death of my cat Simon,

which is certainly very personal to me, but I do believe that many aspects of this story are universal.

It's also the story about my transition from someone who never liked cats, from someone who

considered herself a dog person to someone who is now not only a goat person and a chicken person and a cow person and a turkey person and a pig person among others

but to someone who became a crazy cat person. The most profound

transformations I've had as an individual have really all revolved around

animals, some of these animals, namely Simon and Schuster, my beloved cats. So this

episode is a tribute to them and a memorial to Simon who died just over three weeks

ago. I have often said to my friends as they experienced a loss of someone

they loved that when they're going through this I would say I will need you to teach me how

to grieve when the time comes for me.

And so the time has come.

On August 5, 2009, we lost our little man, Simon, and though we were never given the

exact date of his birth, I do know that he and his brother

Schuster were born around November 15, 1993.

...