Pookie and her sister were dropped off at a vet clinic where my mom was working at the time. My mom brought them both home.
My brother claimed her sister. I claimed Pookie. Or she claimed me. I'm not sure which happened first.
She was always my cat, though. She would hiss and scratch at everyone else in the house, but she was putty around me.
When I went off to college, she stayed with my parents. In the dead of an Alaskan winter, she snuck out an open door. For days, my dad frantically tried to find her. He nearly gave up on finding her alive when he heard her meowing under a shed. She wouldn't come out to him, so he left the downstairs door open in the freezing weather and went upstairs. He hoped she'd choose to come in on her own.
He was rewarded by the sudden appearance of a black streak zooming through the house and into his lap. He started calling her Pookie. For reasons I will never understand, she decided this was, in fact, her name. Believe me, I tried to change it. She was adamant.
From that point she allowed others in the family to pet her.
To her final days, she was a holy terror around everyone else. She reminded more than one vet tech to treat caution stickers with heightened respect. At home, her favorite game was hanging out when guests came over to the house. She'd look as cute and innocent as she could, trying to lure them into biting or slashing range. They were all warned in advance not to touch her, but she never gave up hope that one would forget.
She could also sense earthquakes before they happened, and she had a specific meow she used to warn me. If I didn't run and hide with her, she would lecture me about my my reckless life choices for hours afterward.
Mostly, though, she was just Pookie. She was my cat and I was her person.
She loved her brush. Loved. It.