text: Most things that are lost are never found. This was true of my cat Lucy. By all accounts, Lucy was a freak of nature, who should have never been born. She was the runt of a litter and suffered from a genetic defect, which had given her a permanent limp and blindness. The poor thing was rejected by her mother and the other kittens had put her at the very bottom of the pecking order. While the other kittens found their forever-homes within weeks, Lucy remained unwanted and unloved until one day when my father found her. She had been abandoned at a roadside in a stereotypical cardboard box, damp from the heavy August rain. In those days, we lived in a small cul-de-sac in a quiet neighborhood. We weren’t exactly poor but we weren’t incredibly wealthy either. Mom had two jobs and dad worked around the clock at a factory. Even though she was blind, Lucy was fierce and her impaired vision didn’t stop her. She had mangled ears and scars before she turned two years old. Her approach to life was to try and be the queen of the castle or die trying. Her whole life from kitten-hood, she stalked the surrounding neighbourhood, muscular, almost skinny. Not once did I ever see that feline flinch, no matter what noise was going on. The only time she relaxed was when he found my sister Grace sitting in the garden, and would curl onto her lap - but only her. I can’t tell you how special that made her feel, how happy. She would tell everyone that she was her cat, with a pride the eye can’t hide. One winter, when the weather had been particularly bitter and Pacific Northwest had suffered the worst blizzards seen in decades, my sister Grace got sick. She’d always been a playful child with wild, strawberry blonde hair and a mischievous glint in her eyes, always plotting the next adventure. There were two years between us, I was the eldest and had just turned thirteen. Grace was eleven and even though we often fought as sisters do, we were extremely close. Our parents worked long hours and were often away, so for most of our childhood, all Grace and I had were each other but we never suffered from it. Lucy had been a welcome addition to the family. On a cold January morning, when small snowflakes crystallized on the kitchen window, creating intricate shapes and danced in the sunlight, I remember waking up to Lucy sitting at the edge of my bed and for the first time ever - she curled up next to me. That’s when I knew something was wrong. Grace had died from pneumonia in the early hours that morning. She had been ill for a few weeks and despite the best efforts of the doctors, they couldn’t save her. After Grace’s death, Lucy changed. She stayed in the house a lot and practically gave up her crown as queen of the hill. It was almost as if she grieved with us, in a way I’ve never seen before. She’d always been a quiet cat who never made much noise but sometimes, I woke up at night to the sound of Lucy crying. It wasn’t just the normal sound of an upset animal, but a heart wrenching wail. It broke not only my heart but also my parents. We never could have guessed that a cat would grow so attached to one human. Despite her blindness, Lucy had never had an accident. Her other senses must have been heightened because she never ventured to the road and so we were never worried for her safety. Three weeks after Grace’s death, Lucy had almost entirely stopped eating and even when we’d taken her to the vet, nothing changed. She became withdrawn and merely the shadow of the cat she once was. One Tuesday afternoon when I came home from school, both my parents waited for me on the porch. “It’s Lucy.” mom said and that’s all she ever needed to say. A delivery driver had knocked on the door a few hours earlier, holding the body of a cat in his arms. It was weird, he said, because he swore the cat had seen him and there was plenty of time for him to hit breaks on the vehicle but the cat had still made a run for it and by the time the driver hit the breaks it was already too late. My parents hadn’t had the heart to tell him about Lucy’s blindness but instead of burying her in the garden, we buried her in the graveyard, next to my sister.