Hi there.
My name is Noah. And this is my story.
Not the story about the giant cats, or the Rat King made of wires, or the city with the purple sky. That was a story I told myself because the real one was too sharp to hold. It cut my hands every time I tried to pick it up.
But I'm holding it now. My hands are scarred, but they're steady.
I was a father. That's the most important part. I was a husband, too, and a builder of custom cabinets, and a guy who burned toast every Tuesday, but mostly, I was a dad.
Her name was Katy.
She wasn't a "Little One" or a "Space Kitten." She was a girl. She had messy brown hair that she hated brushing. She had a laugh that sounded like hiccups. She loved space, not because she understood physics, but because she liked the idea of floating. She used to jump off the couch and yell, "Zero G!" right before she crashed into the cushions.
She was five years old when the headaches started.
We didn't think much of it. Kids get sick. Kids get bumps. But then the bumps became bruises, and the bruises didn't go away.
Leukemia.
It's a word that sounds like metal grinding on bone. It's a word that takes all the air out of the room.
We fought it. God, we fought it. We turned her hospital room into a spaceship. I put glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling tiles. I bought her an oxygen mask and told her it was for her EVA suit. I bought a stuffed cat from the gift shop—Mr. Whiskers—and told her he was her co-pilot.
She was so brave. Braver than me. Braver than any astronaut who ever lived. She took the needles and the nausea and the fear, and she turned them into a game. "I'm fighting the space aliens, Daddy," she'd say when the chemo made her sick. "I'm winning."
But the aliens kept coming.
Six months. That's all we got. Six months of "Grey Days." Six months of watching the light fade from her eyes until she was just a small, pale shape in a big white bed.
She died on a Tuesday. It was raining. I remember looking out the window and thinking how rude it was for the world to just keep spinning. How dare the rain fall? How dare the traffic lights change? Didn't they know the universe had just ended?
My wife... she broke. I don't blame her. I really don't. Some structures are built to bend in the wind, and some are rigid. She was rigid. She snapped. She packed a bag during the funeral reception and left a note on the counter. I can't be in this house. I see her everywhere.
I never saw her again.
So I was alone. Alone in a house full of half-finished drawings and empty juice boxes. Alone with the silence.
The silence was the worst part. It was a physical thing. It sat on my chest like an anvil. I stopped going to work. I stopped eating. I sat in her room, in the rocking chair, clutching Mr. Whiskers, waiting for the door to open. Waiting for her to yell "Zero G!"
But the door never opened.
I started to fade. I stopped being Noah. I stopped being a person. I became a ghost in my own life. I hated the world for taking her. I hated myself for letting it happen. I hated God, gravity, and time.
So, I ran away. Not like my wife—I didn't leave the house. I left my mind.
I built a wall. Brick by brick, I sealed myself inside a place where nobody died. A place where I didn't have to make decisions. A place where I was just a pet. Because pets are safe. Pets are loved. Pets don't have to bury their children.
They found me in the rocking chair. I was malnourished, dehydrated, catatonic. I was holding the stuffed cat so tight my fingers had locked in place.
They took me to St. Felix. Dr. Catwell—the real one, not the tuxedo cat—saved my life. He didn't force me out. He waited. He sat with me in the dark. He handed me the pieces of my life, one by one, and let me turn them into monsters so I could fight them.
He let me play the game until I was strong enough to beat it.
I'm doing better now.
I'm writing this from a cafe in Kyoto. Mr. Whiskers is sitting on the table next to my matcha latte. The waitress gave him a strange look, but she smiled when I adjusted his helmet.
I still cry. Sometimes it hits me on the subway, or when I see a kid with messy hair. The grief doesn't go away. It's not a cold you get over. It's more like... it's like a limp. You learn to walk with it. You learn to run with it. It becomes part of your stride.
I made a promise to a little girl. I told her we'd go to the moon. I told her we'd see the world.
I can't get her to the moon. My rocket ship was made of cardboard and hope, and it burned up on reentry. But I can show her the world. I can show her the cherry blossoms falling like pink snow. I can show her the ocean. I can show her the sunrise over the mountains.
I carry her with me. In the Red Rock in my pocket. In the scruffy fur of this stuffed cat. In the beat of my own heart, which keeps going, even when I thought it had stopped.
My name is Noah. I am a father. And I am a traveler.
And to my little Space Kitty, wherever you are among the stars:
Ground Control loves you. Over and out...
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..
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