A cat named Susan...

I love the way my cat shows her sweet crazy affection, how she cuddles close to you but it's always very much on her terms. Susan is named after my best friend, and it always astounds me how much they're alike. Even though they've never met, and are approximately 1,505 miles apart, the two Susans comfort me with their standoffish affection that I've always found endearing.

Having cat Susan has been a tremendous comfort and I see so much of my best friend in her.

How I lucked out with such good friends, I'll never know, but I most certainly did.

My best friend "Susan" lives in Phoenix, but I grew up across the street from her. She was two years older than me, and I absolutely adored her. She was many things that I wasn't -- creative, hardworking and smart.

While we were growing up, she was always coming up with new money making schemes -- we made bookmarks once, beaded flag pins, lemonade stands, kool-aid stands -- she was a entrepreneur from the start.

I have 1,000s of favorite memories of her, but one of my favorites is every summer in our backyards looking for hours for four leaf clovers. "Susan" is/was a competitor and the second I found a four leaf clover, she found a five, I'd find a six, she'd find a seven, I'd find an eight, she'd find a 10. We pressed all of our four leaf clovers into the encyclopedias in her parents room, there must be hundreds of them still there to this day.

When she moved away to New Orleans for college, I was devastated. I felt like my limbs were ripped off my body and for the next year I felt completely lost. She stayed with me the summer I moved to Boston, and I felt renewed for a time, then she moved back to school and we were further apart then ever. I went to school in Alabama, and she finished up and moved away to Phoenix. She got married over a year a half ago.

When I graduated from college a month after her wedding, she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to come due to the expense of her wedding, and she cried to me over the phone one night, "I'd come if I could, you know I would."

"Of course I know that, don't worry, it's not a big deal," I told her.

She dropped it and a couple days later she called again crying. "I can't believe I won't be there for you, I should be, I would if I could."

On my graduation day, during the procession, my phone rang and it was my mom. She told me to turn around and wave so that she could find me in the sea of black caps and gowns. When I turned around I squinted to the other side of the arena, and found the blob of my family in the crowd and then honed in on a familiar face next to my mom. It was my best friend, who flew cross country just to see me walk across a stage.

It breaks my heart to say I haven't seen her since December 18, 2006. We speak frequently and the phone calls make up some of the distance. Even when we go awhile without talking we pick up the phone again like we left off no time at all.

About a year ago she got a dog and named it after me. She said it was sweet and wanted to please everyone, so she couldn't think of a better name than "Rose."

Shortly after, I started feeling a void in my life, needing comfort that only my best friend can give, C and I went to the Seattle Animal Shelter and found Susan. Her crazy glares, her stand offish behavior, her comfort on her terms, every interaction comforts me to know that I found some of my best friend in a cat named Susan.