Hello everyone. The following post has nothing to do with video games at all, but is a true story of a tragic event that happened to my daughters and myself in 2010. I omitted their names but their ages were 17 and 6. I originally sat down to write a short children’s story but this is the flashback that came to mind after so many years, so I finally wrote about it and have decided to share it with you all. Thank You.
LUNA: You will always be remembered…
Luna was the name my youngest daughter gave her. I had suggested it to her because it was the name of a character on her favorite Japanese anime show called “Sailor Moon” about teenage girls who were super heroes originally from the moon with no recollection of their past. Luna was a cat, a baby kitten. I saw her one night while driving with the family. We were on our way to eat something. She was in the middle of the road just curled up meowing. I swayed to the side avoiding her. I immediately looked through my rear view mirror hoping the car behind me swayed as well to avoid the small kitten. My family started to cry out in fear for the kitten and begged me to get out and save it. Another car past by just missing the cat. My heart raced as I saw a car coming down the road in front of me. Would he see it in time? Would he even care?
I stopped my car and got out, holding up traffic behind me and I waved to the car coming in front of me so he would slow down. I bent over and picked up the kitten immediately knowing I would probably have to keep it because of how my girls loved animals. Who would want it I thought to myself. The kitten was shivering and crying loudly as I held her in my arms and approached the car. I looked around to see where she came from or if there were any more by the road but I saw nothing, the road was mostly dark. My oldest daughter lowered the windows and reached out with both arms to take the kitten. She was so happy it was alive and safe and she said she would take care of it. My wife gave me that look and said we couldn’t keep the cat because we had 2 already. I sighed and said; well let’s just see what happens.
What happened was that we kept the cat. Since she was a baby we kept her inside the house. She was such a playful thing and the girls loved her so much. They slept with her and Luna would always suck on the girls thumb as though it was her mother.
A few months passed and as Luna grew up, so did her daring deeds and playfulness. She would race back and forth in the house and loved to jump on furniture. One of the things she enjoyed doing was jumping on my speakers and scale the front mesh fabric up to the top. This was not amusing to me and a few times the speakers almost fell over because they were not flat on the floor but had a support stand underneath and the speakers could lean back tilted upright on these. It was mostly to keep them off the ground.
Luna was a good cat. She behaved a lot like a child, always playful, curious and sucking on my youngest daughters thumb.
This is where the fun stuff ends and the tragedy begins. I think of it as the day I and my daughters looked death in the eyes, the day my oldest daughter held death in her arms and both of my babies lost their innocence. All three of us were connected that day in a horrible way we would never forget and we would never really speak of it afterwards but we knew when we looked at each other, we knew that that day would never be forgotten.
It was around 1:45pm one afternoon. I was getting ready to pick up my youngest at school. My oldest daughter was playing a video game in the living room and did not want to accompany me. The school was about 10 min away. Luna was outside in the laundry room. I said I would be right back and left. I remember picking up my daughter that day. She was so happy and very talkative. I approached the corner of our house on the way home I saw a car stopped in the street talking to someone by the door to the drivers side. As I got closer I realized it was my oldest daughter. She turned to see me pulling up and ran to me screaming hysterically. She had blood all over her shirt, hands and face. This is where I sort of went into a mental haze, maybe it was shock I suppose. I feared the worst, then I saw her holding Luna in her arms all bloody and motionless.
My first thought was that she got out and was hit by a car, maybe that’s why that car was stopped in front of the house? The man asked if he could help and said he had more cats if she wanted one. I just told him to leave and ignored him and focused my attention to my daughter. I pulled in the driveway and jumped out of the car, my daughter pleaded with me to save Luna and not let her die, she said that she had let her inside the house and that the cat jumped up on my speaker and held on to the mesh, this time the speaker came crashing down onto Luna. My daughter could not reach her in time and after taking the speaker off her, noticed she started to convulse and spit blood everywhere. She picked up the cat and ran outside looking for help. That’s when she had flagged down the car.
During all the excitement I had forgotten about my youngest in the car. I looked to her and I realized she was in shock as well. She was frozen and ready to burst into tears but just held it in out of fear I guess. I told everyone to calm down. My heart was racing and I heard everything so far away, almost like in the movies. My thoughts sounded like someone screaming in my ear and I was afraid, mostly for my daughters and because of what they were going trough and witnessing and I could not block it out.
Everything happened so fast. I looked at Luna, she had almost no color in her eyes, I did not know if she was alive, as my daughter pleaded to save her I thought to myself I could just not do nothing and that I had try, at least for her sake. I told her it was a long shot. I told her to put her in her favorite box with a sheet or something and I would drive to the vet. I tried to remember where a damn vet was. I could not think at all. We got in the car and drove off. I then remembered a vet close to the house about 15 min away, but it was already almost 3 pm and traffic was everywhere, the girls were crying in the car and I could not concentrate. I just kept looking at the road and at Luna lying in the box lifeless. I was their father, their hero and at this moment when they needed me the most I was useless. I could not bring back the dead. I could not take away my girl’s suffering. I did not care about myself, I just wanted it to be over and a month in the future already so I would not have to witness their suffering as I did. Was this selfish of me? I do not know but I would do anything to make them feel better. What trauma would this cause them I thought to myself. Is the little one to young for this? I remembered when my grandmother died and how it affected my oldest daughter when she was 12 yrs old. They were so close, but this was different. Luna died in front of her, in her arms.
I pulled into the vet and told my girls to stay in front. I said I would go in first and I took the box inside. I went to the front desk. As I tried to speak my throat was dry, I stuttered. I told the girl at the desk what had happened and showed her the box, She could see I was visibly shaking and she took the box with Luna and told me to wait there and ran inside to the doctor.
As I looked behind me I saw that my girls were inside as well. I had not noticed all the people in the waiting room, they were all staring at me. I sat down with my girls and held their hands. They asked if Luna was going to be alright. I told them I did not know but it looked really bad. My eldest blamed herself for letting Luna inside and I right away took that thought out of her mind. I told her that it was not her fault and she could have never known Luna was going to do that. We waited in silence for what seemed like an hour, then the nurse came back out. She had that serious sad face they put on when they bring you bad news. She looked at me and moved her head slowly left and right. She then spoke softly and said we tried but it was too late and she was pretty banged up inside. She asked if I wanted them to dispose of the body or if I wanted it back. I replied; you dispose of her please.
I turned to my daughters and explained. They knew and started to cry. I held them as we walked to the car and drove home.
There was silence in the car as we arrived home. One of my daughters said that mommy did not know and that we would have to tell her. I replied that I would tell her. As we got out of the car my oldest daughter pulled me to the side and said; daddy, don’t let my little sister in the house yet, the living room and kitchen is covered in blood because as I ran back and forth with Luna screaming her blood flew everywhere.
As I write this, I do not remember the excuse I gave my youngest daughter to stay outside. I went in and the smell of blood and death was immediate to me. I saw the drops of blood all over the white ceramic tiles in the kitchen, all over the walls also. As I walked into the living room I saw the blood trail leading to my speaker which was still on the floor. As I lifted the speaker up I saw a small pool of blood and realized that this was the spot where Luna drew her last breath. It was surreal to me, all of it and I was not quite sure but it felt like a dream at the same time. Maybe I was still in shock. I wondered if my daughters felt the same and I worried. I took cleaning products from the closet and plenty of paper towels and started wiping the blood off the walls and floor. I thought to myself, how could something like this happen? Then of course the second question was why did something like this have to happen? I should have been here I thought. I had no answer. I guess because there probably was no answer.
For many months the area where the speaker fell on Luna always had a bad stench, it just smelled bad, like blood or something. I cleaned it regularly but it did go away with time.
When my wife arrived home that day she asked for Luna, my youngest was next door with the neighbor and I was with our eldest. We just looked at her and said that there was an accident and Luna had died. My wife was shocked and in disbelief. Everything was explained to her.
It has been about two years since Luna’s death but we all remember her and we still have photos of her. Both of my daughters cry when they see them and my youngest asks where she is and if she is ok. Of course I tell her she is fine. This was the first death she witnessed for something she loved dearly. She still loves to watch Sailor Moon and I know she is reminded of Luna when she watches it, every time that cat comes on screen and her name is spoken, it is a constant reminder. I don’t know how she does it.
So this is our story. The story of how my daughter held death in her arms and looked it in the eye. As I write this, again my heart races just remembering the faces of my daughters that fateful day and how powerless I felt as they looked at me for help. You might be wondering why I would write this? Well I believe in doing so, I am preserving her memory and what she meant to us. It’s something I just felt needed to be done and I feel a sense of closure also. I’m sure many of you have experienced a loss of a pet, hopefully not as tragic as this though. Luna, we will never forget.
-James Seda
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