01.12.2026

I have always believed that once you bring a companion animal into your home, another heart starts beating alongside yours. Over time, your hearts find a rhythm together. Sometimes you lead; sometimes they do. It becomes a duet. And when the music stops, for whatever reason, the silence is deafening.

As the one-year anniversary approaches of the day my cat, Lily, crossed the rainbow bridge, I’ve found this essay difficult to write. Not because she’s gone, but because her story ended with a decision I made—one I still haven’t made peace with.

Lily came into my life thirteen winters ago, a feral kitten shivering on someone’s back porch. A friend’s sister rescued her, and not long after, she became mine. I had recently lost Sweet Pea, my parents’ cat, whom I’d adopted when caring for her became too difficult for them. I thought I wanted an older cat. A male. A tuxedo. I had even picked out a name: Hennessy-James. I imagined us spending our twilight years together—me writing, him doing, well, whatever he wanted.

Then Lily happened. One look, and all those plans dissolved.

I wish I could say it was love at first sight for both of us. It wasn’t. Lily tolerated me at best. She appreciated food, warmth, and shelter, but her affection was rationed. She spent much of her life hiding—under beds, in closets, behind furniture—always alert, always afraid.

Everything startled her: from blaring sirens to the click of the furnace. Petting her was risky. Picking her up was a gamble. I wore sweatshirts like armor to protect myself against her scratches and bites. Even the vet staff put on protective gear when I brought her in for visits or to board her. We were never going to be anyone’s idea of a successful "gotcha" story.

Still, I loved her like nobody's business.

She had always been a biter, but in her last year, the bites escalated. What once broke skin began sending me to the emergency room. One infection took multiple rounds of antibiotics to clear. Another landed me in the hospital. While I was there, the hospitalist shouted at me every time he entered the room, telling me to “get rid of that cat!” He yelled so loudly I’m amazed he didn’t wake the patient down the hall who was in a medically induced coma.

Even my vet—who had cared for Lily for years—eventually suggested it might be time to let her go. We had tried medications, behavioral therapy, and every reasonable intervention we could think of. Nothing helped. If anything, repeated vet visits only made things worse, deepening her fear and aggression.

I considered rehoming her. Maybe someone else could do better by her than I had. But no reputable rescue or humane society would take a cat with Lily’s history. So I made a decision that was in my best interest, but not in hers. And my heart has never fully accepted it.

I still question myself. Scrolling through social media doesn’t help. Every day there are clips of “difficult” animals who blossom in the right forever home, and every time I watch one, I think: Why not her? Why not me? Why not us?

There’s a quote I came across recently: “Grief is love with nowhere to go.” It stopped me cold because it explains so much of what I still feel. My love for Lily didn’t disappear when she did. It lingers in my memory and in the way I still expect to see her in certain corners of my house. After all, this was her home, too.

People ask if I’ll get another animal, as if the love I had for her could easily be transferred to another pet. They talk as if Lily could be replaced in the same way a person replaces a pair of lost gloves or sunglasses. I understand their point: there are so many animals who need homes, and I have one to give. The problem is, grief doesn’t work that way.

January 17 marks one year since Lily died. It’s also the date that would have been my seventeenth wedding anniversary. Two losses, linked by a calendar. Both still reverberate in ways I can’t quite explain.

If I could, I’d tell grief that it has overstayed its welcome. But it doesn't leave when we tell it to. So, I remind myself that this is the price you pay for loving deeply—especially when you love a soul whose absence is, ironically, always present.

Lily was never just a pet. She was my duet partner. And even though we were often out of tune, it was our song—and it was beautiful in every imaginable way.