On Monday, a message from Arnold appeared on my WeChat: Tutu had passed away.

Tutu was a cat. At seventeen years old, he had lived a life that would be considered exceptionally long by any feline standard. Yet, the weight of the loss was no less heavy for Arnold. In the voice notes he sent, his voice was a ragged rasp, the unmistakable sound of someone who had spent the hours prior in tears. He told me that Tutu had slipped away peacefully in his sleep—perhaps the kindest ending one could hope for. Still, Arnold was haunted by guilt. He was devastated that he hadn’t been there to say a final goodbye, to whisper one last time how much he loved him.

I tried my best to offer comfort. I told Arnold that after seventeen years together, Tutu surely knew he was loved. I suggested that perhaps the cat had chosen to leave quietly, sparing his companion the agony of a final parting, wanting him only to remember the joy of their life together.

But even as I spoke, I knew my words were hollow. For Arnold, Tutu was never “just a cat.” He was a constant through the years—a friend, a confidant, a member of the family. Tutu had entered Arnold’s life during his darkest, most vulnerable hour. He was a beacon of light. And while I know Arnold’s life is no longer defined by that single spark, it remained, without question, the most vital one.

Their story began in 2009, when Arnold found Tutu on the streets of Guangzhou. He was a kitten, barely a month old and in a state of horrific neglect. Someone had cruelly blinded him in one eye, and he was battling feline distemper. Bereft of his mother’s care, Tutu was a ghost of a creature; had Arnold found him just a few days later, he would have found a corpse. Even then, it felt as though the kitten was already in the cold embrace of death.

When Arnold brought the dying kitten to a veterinarian, the diagnosis was grim. The vet offered a single, pragmatic suggestion: euthanasia. Arnold was prepared to accept the advice, but at that exact moment, Tutu let out a faint, tiny cry. To Arnold, it sounded like a plea—a declaration that he wasn’t ready to give up. “I will do everything I can,” Arnold told the vet, “unless he decides to leave on his own.” With a sigh of resignation, the vet performed one last emergency intervention, though he warned Arnold that it might only serve to prolong the kitten’s suffering.

Armed with a handful of medications and a flickering hope, Arnold brought the tiny warrior back to his rented room. At the time, Arnold’s own life was in shambles. He had just endured a traumatic breakup with a long-term boyfriend who had secretly married a woman. His ex was a civil servant with a promising career in the government “system.” They had met when Arnold was only eighteen and his partner twenty-five. Their relationship had been a secret until his partner’s parents caught them together. Arnold had believed they would face the world together, but he was blindsided when his partner immediately succumbed to family pressure, marrying a woman who also worked within the system. When confronted, the man claimed it was a necessity of circumstance, promising he would divorce once he had produced a son. Arnold didn’t wait for that empty future; he fled to Guangzhou to start anew.

It was in Guangzhou that Arnold eventually met his current partner, Charlie. Together, they became Tutu’s family. But Charlie’s past was marked by its own brand of tragedy—a story that moved me to tears when I first heard it.

Charlie grew up in a traditional Cantonese household where the weight of the clan was absolute. His mother had died giving birth to him, leaving him and his older sister in the care of a father whose sense of “filial piety” bordered on self-destruction. When Charlie was in elementary school, his father—at the urging of Charlie’s grandfather and uncles—confessed to a crime committed by his brothers. The elders argued that the uncles were the “important” members of the family who could not afford to go to prison. The father, seen as the most expendable, was chosen as the scapegoat. He agreed, sacrificing nine years of his life behind bars for the sake of the clan.

The uncles did not keep their promise of care. While Charlie and his sister were not cast out onto the streets, they were treated as domestic servants in their own family. Had it not been for China’s mandatory nine-year education policy, they likely would have been pulled from school entirely. When it came time for Charlie to enter high school, the uncles refused to pay. The grandfather, the self-proclaimed “fair” patriarch, remained silent. In an act of profound sacrifice, Charlie’s sister dropped out of vocational school and moved to Guangzhou to work, using her meager earnings to fund her brother’s education.

When their father was finally released from prison, there was no gratitude waiting for him. Instead, the family treated him as a disgrace to their reputation. Tragically, the father accepted this narrative. He became a servant to his own brothers and father, working for free to earn their “forgiveness.” Disillusioned and heartbroken, Charlie and his sister eventually cut ties with him. Perhaps realizing he was unworthy of the title of “father,” the man did not protest; he simply watched in silence as his children walked away, their faces etched with the pain he had helped cause.

Tutu was the angel who appeared to them during those lean, difficult years. I understand now why his presence meant so much. Words feel inadequate to soothe a loss of this magnitude. I can only hope that time, in its slow and steady way, will eventually dull the sharp edges of their grief. I like to believe that they will see Tutu again, in a place where partings are no longer necessary. I am a materialist and an atheist, yet I find myself wanting to believe that those who are meant to be together will always find their way back to one another.

Goodnight, Tutu.