I’ve never been a person who is super emotional. Not emotionless, necessarily, but definitely not someone who wears their heart on their sleeve. I can’t say I’m fully in touch now, but my life with Lucifer leaves me feeling every feeling I have. Happiness, anger, longing and an intense grief I haven’t fully processed.
In the late summer of 2014, I was working in a salon in West Philly, PA. I hadn’t been there long, and I was in the process of moving out of a tiny studio apartment. I lived alone, and I liked that. We were closing down the shop and a kid walked in with a tiny black and white kitten, saying he was going to sell him to the pet shop next door. I told him for 5 dollars I would take him. That was the start of our journey together. I didn’t really want him, I was going to give him to a rescue my friend ran. He spent the night at my apartment, filled with boxes and the next morning I knew he was mine.
Lucifer was only with me for 8 years, he died of an undiagnosed metabolic disorder that took him quickly. In those 8 years we moved 5 times, I got married, I had 2 kids. I lost multiple friends, switched jobs about a million times, decided to go back to school and he was there for all of it. The constant of my 20’s was him, his big glowing green eyes, his enormous head and loud as an engine purr. He was pure evil to anyone who wasn’t me, a true familiar. Lucifer died on October 20th, 2022, one month after I delivered my second child. It was a blessing and curse that he went quickly. He died in my arms, with me whispering “I love you, I love you, I love you” over and over until the vet told me he was gone.
In the immortal words of pot roasts mom “I have never loved anyone the way I love you, and I am going to miss you for the rest of my life. But to me, that is not a burden, to me, it is an honor.” It is an honor to carry my grief for him. It is a privilege that we got to love each other for the 8 years we had together. There isn’t a day I don’t think of him. I know I’ll find him again, in this life or the next.
I love you, my LuLu.