I’ll miss the days late at night, when I’d go to bed, and she’d jump on the bed, too, and climb on my chest, and demand to be petted. So I’d pet her for a bit and when I drifted off to sleep, she’d climb off and curl up close by.

One thing about Snowy. She knew how to tell you she was pissed off. I think we had been traveling a lot at one point. And she didn’t like it, so when we returned, she peed on my trusty Eagle Creek travel backpack that had been with me forever — multiple trips through Asia. Parts of Europe. Lots of camping and rock climbing trips in the U.S. I loved that bag. I washed it three times in the washer, but her pee was so potent, I had to toss it. It took me a few years, but I think I finally got over it.

Anyway, Snowy was the original out of our zoo of five animals. She probably didn’t like it when we picked up three dogs and another cat, but she adapted. During the past week, she was immobile. But on Thanksgiving, she had this amazing moment of clarity. When we all gathered for Thanksgiving dinner, she hopped off the family room sofa, walked into the dining room and jumped on the chair next to Miiko. For one last time, Snowy wanted to hang out and have dinner with us. So we fed her turkey. Lots of it. For that brief moment, she was energetic. Everything was the same again. Everything was OK again. It was a very cool moment to have.

I’ve always considered myself a dog person. But the very fact that I’ve written this, I now realize I’m a cat person, too. Goodbye, Snow Girl.

When I tell this story to friends, they always laugh. And that’s exactly what a friendly, retired couple did as we walked our dogs together this past week. Because of summer travels, we hadn’t seen each other for months. So we caught up with each others lives in the neighborhood greenbelt as our dogs got their exercise. And that’s when I told them about 6/11.

They laughed. And then the wife gave me a reality check.

“Dream on!” she said, smiling.

Excuse me?

They are in their 60s, with eight grown children and lots of grandchildren. And they clearly were about to school me.

“Even now, I have to help them out,” the husband explained.

Ouch.

I see.

When I graduated from high school, my parents were willing to pay for all my college expenses. But in my sophomore year, I got a part-time job at a newspaper, my chosen field. The pay wasn’t much – $7 an hour – but it was enough to pay my tuition and all my living expenses for the rest of my college years. And ever since then, I’ve been self-sufficient.

I expect the same from Little M when she graduates. I hope she gets a job and not have to boomerang. But the U.S. economy is on life-support, and there are no guarantees it will get better in two years. If she ever needs help, my wife and I will, of course, whip out the checkbook.

The couple had popped our bubble. But the husband tried to make us feel better.

“It’s OK to think that way,” he said about our 6/11 mantra. “Because it gives you hope. You have to have hope because it keeps you going.”

Journalism is a small world, and in the mid-1990s, when I was a young, impressionable, sometimes naive journalist, I was fortunate enough to cross paths with them. They didn’t know me very well, but nonetheless, they took time to help and mentor me, and for that, I’m forever grateful to them.

I first met Brand in 1996 when I was a reporter for the West County Times, in Richmond, Calif. At the time, my newspaper chain was trying to make inroads into Berkeley, and was offering a crazy deal – $10 for a year’s subscription – to drive readers and compete against the Oakland Tribune. Brand was a grizzled newspaper vet who covered Berkeley for the Tribune, and one afternoon, he and I were stuck at City Hall, waiting for a city official to emerge from a locked office to give us additional details for a story.

He knew I was on deadline before a Berkeley City Council meeting, and that I was angsting. I hadn’t yet developed the skill to pump out a 12-inch story in mere minutes. I needed time – at least a good hour – to write the story, and needed to rush home to file the story before the meeting, or I was hosed. This was before Wi-Fi, back in the day when we needed phone lines to dial into the newsroom computer system. Brand took pity on me and said something like: “You go home and write your story. I’ll wait here and when I get the information, I will call you and share it with you.”

I was surprised. I was taught in journalism school that you simply don’t share information with your competitors. I didn’t trust him. But I was also relieved that he gave me an out. So I took it. An hour later, he did call. He shared all the information he had. He saved my ass.

I’ve never forgotten his kind act. We were competitors and he didn’t care. He taught me a good lesson in journalism: the difference between competition for scoops, which this was not, and being a nice guy to a fellow colleague.

As for Reed, I’ve read many stories in his obituary’s online guest book about how he’d eat everyone’s lunch on a breaking news story, so I’m glad I never competed against him. I got to know him outside the newsroom because my friends at work were good friends of his. One time, in 1997 or 1998, we met in a Berkeley pub or coffee shop one night, and I told him that I had just received a new job offer.

It was a choice between loyalty and jumping ship for much higher pay, a choice between staying in the comfort zone and pushing myself to explore the unknown. I told him I was choosing loyalty and comfort. And in a very gentle way, he told me I was making a mistake. We talked it through. The upshot: I took his advice, and took the new job, and in many ways, the decision helped me get to where I am today.

Each of these experiences is what I remember of the two men. Both were willing to help a kid out and impart their wisdom. I can only imagine the impact they made to their families, friends and colleagues, day in and day out, year after year. Because of that, their legacies live on.