trigger warning: today's episode is about my cat dying but i think you'll enjoy the read

if you don't read it that means you hated my cat which is forbidden

It’s very difficult to process grief in New York City. You can’t go sit by the water and cry about having to put your 20-year-old cat down without getting asked by tourists to take a photo of them in front of the Manhattan skyline. I couldn’t have been bothered at a worse time — earbuds in, sunglasses on, hiding my face … very obviously ready to take an iPhone photo of a couple on the East River. You have to wonder how many people might’ve been going through something when they were asked to take a photo. Next time I’m crying at the Williamsburg docks, I’ll have a gratuity screen open on an iPad.

A few weeks after April 20, 2003, a sweet little black cat that the vet told us was a boy came into our lives and into our other kitten’s nightmares. My mom was the one who figured out she was a girl. My entire family disagrees with me, but to this day, I am 110% sure I named her Lucky. As a six-year-old, naming a black cat Lucky felt ingenious. Lucky and I didn’t connect right away. I used to shout for my parents to run into my room because the cats were chasing each other on the floor around my bed, and my brother and I thought that if we tried to step off my bed, our lives would be over before they even began. And just to give a better visual, when they were acting all homicidal and violent, this is who they were traumatizing:

Oh, my god, those curtains…

With the way they fought each other, I thought our other cat Hector was going to eat her. Hector’s name sign was the same sign as “king” since he acted as if he ran the house. And it was true … until Lucky showed up. She was always in charge, and after only a few more weeks, Hector bowed down.

Eventually, Lucky ripped open my heart and hopped inside. It was known throughout the community (my house of four people) that she was mine. When I moved into the bedroom downstairs, she followed along and slept there almost every night. For years. And when I went to college and came home on breaks, she was back in my room. At that point, she was 15 or so, and Hector was beginning to show his age. But Lucky was still as lively as she was the day we were told she was a boy. I always imagined that if Hector and Lucky could speak, Hector would sound like Antonio Banderas (thanks to Puss in Boots) and Lucky sounded like Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter franchise). Her meow was as high-pitched, but when she was mad that she didn’t get our attention after, maybe two meows, it turned into Brendan Gleeson. That girl could scream, and it could be a very low scream. An impossible pitch to match, I’ll tell you that much.

Lucky started having health problems around five years ago, and each time we brought her to the vet, Christoph Waltz (what the vet there sounded like and looked like) would scare us and say that she had only a year at most to live. And each time, he would be surprised at how well she was keeping on. Lucky had no time to die; she had so many errands to run and so many new hiding spots to find before it would ever be time. But because of Christoph Waltz, I would tell Lucky goodbye each time I had to go back to school or each time I went back to New York and that she just had to wait until I got back. And each time, she listened. She was there sleeping on my bed, awaiting my arrival.

But since I moved to New York, Lucky’s nine lives had become less, and she couldn’t do as much as she wished. She had to start bribing other cats to run her errands — well, she called them errands, but I think she was up to something very underground and suspicious. One time I found my copy of The Communist Manifesto in the litter box, which can only mean one of two things: she was using her bathroom time to write some of her greatest work — something we all do — or she thought it was trash. We’ll never know. But I could tell that we were getting closer. And I refused to think about it. But I’d get a FaceTime from my mom saying that she was eating less and getting smaller or not responding when she’d call Lucky’s name — and then suddenly she’d be back to her normal self and jumping from table to counter.

This past week, all I would say to my mom was that I was excited to be home in a week to see her, and I could tell in my mom’s eyes that it might not be possible. And then the other day, Lucky couldn’t use one of her back legs very easily, and it looked painful. And it was my decision, and it was the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make: to have her go before or after I arrive in Chicago. And while it breaks my heart to have decided this, I know it was the right choice.

I said goodbye to Lucky on FaceTime Friday night for the final time. My mom set up her phone, and I played a few songs on the guitar — whenever I did that at home, it was Lucky’s sign to jump into my lap and fall asleep. I wasn’t sure if she would even be aware of my voice on the phone until I saw her use all the strength she could to jump onto the bed, lie down closer to the sound, and fall asleep. And I knew that she knew I was there. That’s as good of a final memory as I could ever have with her.

I’m writing this at the moment that I know she’s gone, and it’s breaking my heart. To not remember a world without my sweet Lucky and now have to move into one like that feels unfair. But to also know that we gave her a life so good that she wanted to stay in it as long as she possibly could (140 cat years, to be exact) makes today a bittersweet one.

A few funny things from this moment:

Remember how I got hit by an e-bike the other week? Well, up until this week, I thought I was gonna have to consider urgent care because I could barely put weight on it. But thanks to Lucky, it took being told she was dying for me to lay down and not move for 48 hours, which allowed my leg to heal. It’s literally never been better.

Second point: I’m glad Lucky died on the day of King Charles’s coronation because that can only mean that Lucky’s soul was shot into the Royal Jewels, allowing her to overthrow the monarchy in the near future. She always had an agenda, and for that, I applaud her. And I bid her farewell.

Third and final funny point: I’ve been sneezing nonstop as I write this, which seems only right since I couldn’t have been more allergic to Ms. Lucky. Like nonstop sneezing I’m almost done with this tissue box and I opened it on Monday.

I’ve been listening to We’ll Meet Again by The Ink Spots, so I’ll end with a lyric, which won’t actually matter because Lucky refused to learn how to read, even though I asked her so many times to learn, to which she replied in a Brendan Gleeson voice and not a Saoirse Ronan voice (I’m saying Saoirse Ronan now because I think she’s more well-known and you all know that voice), “I WILL NEVER GIVE IN TO THE GOVERNMENT OR BIG LITERATURE, and if you ask me again I will gain your life as my tenth.” So … she won’t be reading this. Anyway, the lyric:

We'll meet again

We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when,

But I know we'll meet again, some sunny day.

Keep smiling through, just like you always do,

'Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away.

Until then, Lucky.