personal essay
More Than Luck
A cat, a car, and a cosmic rescue
Chulo and Bean weren’t just our cats; they were the center of our little family. They went outside in the morning and came back before nightfall. So when we returned from an evening stroll to see our roommate running toward us on the sidewalk barefoot, we knew something had happened to one of them.
“Go to the animal hospital,” she panted. “It’s Chulo.”
Johan drove while I chewed my fingernails. After an agonizing wait, a doctor in blue scrubs and a surgical mask entered the lobby. He told us Chulo had been hit by a car, but he was alive. A broken lower jaw would need surgery, but there was no organ damage.
“Most cats don’t get so lucky,” he added.
When I saw Chulo inside a kennel, I broke down. He let out a high-pitched cry, eyes wide with fear. I had failed to protect him. “I’m so sorry,” I sobbed. But he was upright, pacing, pressing his side into my hand. As I stroked him through the bars, I felt a vibration under my fingers. I was to blame for his suffering, but he was purring, simply happy to see me.
It was dark outside when we finally got home. In my front pocket was a folded piece of paper with a phone number — the good Samaritan who had brought Chulo in.
Her name was Lynn, a social worker who also rescued cats. A friend had called her after seeing Chulo hit by a car and limp into a bush. Miraculously, Lynn had been out driving a few minutes from our house — with a pet carrier in the back seat. Before we had even returned from our walk, Chulo was receiving urgent care at an animal hospital — a hospital called Angell.
“I was supposed to be with a client that day, but they canceled at the last minute,” she added.
Another person in the right place at the right time was our neighbor, who had witnessed the accident from his balcony and hurried to our apartment to find us. That’s how our roommate ended up on the sidewalk, searching for us.
It all seemed so unlikely. What if the car had hit Chulo a millisecond earlier or later, or no one had seen it happen? What if Lynn had been with her client or we didn’t live just a mile from the animal hospital? The doctor had called Chulo lucky. But this felt bigger, less like coincidence and more like cosmic intervention.
We converted our office into a recovery room, where we took turns nursing Chulo back to health. We had to feed and bathe him until his jaw healed. It was an exhausting, round-the-clock endeavor, but we performed it with gratitude. It was our daily penance.
The next time Johan and I set out for an evening walk, Chulo was asleep on his favorite blanket in the setting sun. He stretched, revealing a small scar under his chin where the doctors had put his jaw back together — a permanent reminder of how close I came to losing him. He wasn’t ready to go outside again. But when he was, I’d have a harness and leash waiting.
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