Back in the early 2010s I lived with a few good friends. One of which, my buddy Troy, had a dog named Gatsby who was by all accounts a literal angel. Super sweet, fluffy, happy, bouncy, just a total joy. So one weekend Troy and his girlfriend at the time went out of town for some reason (I don't remember why) and so me and the other roomies were on dogsitting duty. It was going pretty well until we let Gatsby go into the backyard to do his nightly business. After like twenty or thirty minutes he hadn't come back inside so we went to look for him. It was pitch black outside, our backyard was overgrown (we were in college), and Gatsby's fur was black so it actually took a few minutes to find him even with flashlights. When we eventually spotted him he was just laying down chilling in the grass and panting. I reached down to pet him and give him a "hey buddy what are you doin'?" and his fur was really wet. So I pointed the flashlight at my hand and saw that my palm was solid red. "Holy shit this dog cut himself on something by the shed or maybe a snake bit him or fucking something. Oh my god, oh shit..." I thought. So we scooped him up, threw him in the back of another roommate's truck (Matt, he rules). I got in the bed of the little truck with Gatsby and Matt drove incredibly fast to get us to the emergency vet. I legit felt like I was going to get thrown from the bed a few times. It was weird because I was scared for my own safety but Matt was doing exactly what he should have been doing - getting to the vet as fast as possible - and I was so focused on this dog that I just didn't even care. I can still remember how the wind felt on my face as we sped through stop signs and ran red lights - weirdly nice and relaxing. But only out of necessity. I was so panicked and freaked out that I think my brain chooses to remember and romanticize the good parts the most.

So we get to the emergency clinic and hurry Gatsby inside. The veterinarian shows up right as we do and gets to work. Meanwhile, we're on and off the phone with Troy the whole time giving him updates. Eventually the vet comes out and tells us the news - It's not a wound or a bite. She concluded that Gatsby must have gotten into some rat poison or something and it was essentially a death sentence.

We told Troy he should probably head home.

I sit in the lobby of this vet for a while. A couple other people come in with their pets and seem to get in and out without a lot of trouble. Nothing too serious. These people were just worried about their friends, you know? A few hours later Troy and his girlfriend show up and we exchange hugs and what not before we walk them inside to talk to the vet. The vet's office was connected to the waiting room so I could still see them pretty well and I could hear bits and pieces of their conversation.

I watched my friend hold and cry into this dog until he passed away and it's going to haunt me forever.

A few years later I had moved away for grad school and me and my girlfriend (now wife!) had adopted a little kitten that we named Tokyo Lunchbox (Lunchbox, Lunch, Lunchable, or Lunk for short). After a few weeks Lunch had quickly become the center of our universe. That's my little boy, my baby son! I love that cat more than anyone has ever loved anything. He was only a few months old and while I was having the time of my life raising this baby boy I was already thinking about the scary part... About how inevitably I would outlive him. About how incredibly empty I'm going to feel when that day comes. About how one day I'm going to be laying in the floor or the street or at a vet's office or god know's where wrapped around him and begging him not to go...


I think about it every day.


So in 2019, I wrote this song to get all this out and recorded a quick little voice memo demo in my phone. Then over the Covid shutdown I recorded a proper demo at home and then mixed it and remixed it over and over over several years all the way up to until a few weeks ago. I have never really found a good place to put it and so it's just been sitting on a pile of completed song demos that I'm hoping to one day record in a more professional environment... until now.

So fast forward again to present day. I now have three cats - Lunch, Juniper Crimes (Crim-Cram, Lil Girl, Sunbelly, Pinhead Larry, Litle Head Big Dreams, Little Sister, etc.), and Vampire Guggenheim (Guggen, Guggey, Guggey Wuggey, The Goo Boy, Count Goo Goo,etc.). Guggey is a couple months old and Crimes just turned four back in April. One day Crimes started acting kind of weird and lethargic so we took her to the emergency vet and after several more visits, a ton of money, and an absolutely hellish week we got some answers...

Long story short - Crimes, my sweet little perfect angel, has congestive heart failure. She has to take a bunch of meds every twelve hours and she doesn't seem to want to eat a lot. Our vet said she'll probably make it another six to twelve months...

Our four year old little girl only has another six to twelve months.

Needless to say, we're heartbroken but we're spoiling her the best we can. Life is rough though and money is tight. Especially after all the emergency care, the kitten supplies for Guggey, and just the world around us getting worse and more expensive. So with everything considered I decided it was time to go ahead and put this song into the world in an attempt to get it out there and express the absolute devastation I'm feeling lately (and also to maybe recoup some expenses - luv u, Bandcamp Friday!). Hell, maybe a lot of you have gone through some similar stuff and can really relate. I really hope you can. If there's any good to come from these types of tragedies it's the togetherness that grief can create. I think that feeling really resonates.

So hey, if you made it this far I hope you listen to the song and I hope that it gives you the kind of catharsis I got from making it.

I love you guys
Hug your pets

-J