How Toothless Helped My Sister and I Bid Goodbye to Kitty

When my sister and I went to watch ‘How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World' we were looking for an escape. We had just lost our pet of more than ten years, our family member, Kitty, the cat.

We came looking for an escape to a kids’ theater, where we were the only adults who came without children of our own. While the children were busy with the play area available within the theatre, we were seriously focused on the movie — a franchise we had been watching since the first one came out, always convinced that Toothless looked like Kitty.

But if that was all before, it got more intense during ‘The Hidden World’. In the third installment, Hiccup bids goodbye to Toothless as his dragon finds his way home and we found ourselves identifying so much more with Hiccup than we ever imagined.

Toothless was there to protect Hiccup in moments of distress, just like Kitty was there for us — separately, in moments we needed her the most. For me, it was in 2014, when I found myself in the lowest place in my life — a career going nowhere, nearly friendless, and with the least hope I had found myself to have.

For us, the “quest for the hidden world” signified finding our happy places, to find where we belonged and Kitty helped us find ours, when we were in desperate need of some form of guidance.

It seems silly to place so much on a cat, but it required knowing Kitty to know how much she meant to us. In our loneliest moments, Kitty provided solace, she let us know that she was with us as we fought our own personal battles — not just for my sister and me, but also for each of our parents.

Each of us — my mother, my sister, my father, and I — were left broken by her passing. I don’t think I still have come to terms with it. It was her death that broke me to the point where it was I finally decided to seek therapy.

Neither of us knew that Kitty’s last day would be her last day. Neither of us were able to say goodbye, or provide her the same solace she had given us over the years, in her last moments.

Kitty helped us realize the strength we have in each other, just like Toothless helped Hiccup. She protected us from our darkest moments. She just made it easier to be ourselves. 

Losing her made me realize there could be nothing worse than losing someone you love. I stood up for myself in a workplace, and I took chances to move closer to my dreams.

“I was so busy fighting for what I wanted, I did not think of what you needed,” says Hiccup to Toothless, in a reflection of what we’d have liked to have said to Kitty, “you’ve looked after us for long enough, time to look after yourself.”

As we got closer to the end of the movie, I found myself tearing up uncontrollably, thinking of our dear Kitty, hoping to wipe away the tears before my sister saw them — I was certain that she would be more put together.

But when the lights came on and I turned to her, she turned to me, wiping away her own tears as the kids around us started getting noisier again. In our silent understanding, we both knew the other was thinking of Kitty as we blinked helplessly, hoping the other movie-goers would not notice us — the adults crying at a kids’ movie.

I hope Kitty is in her own hidden world, where she is happy beyond belief, where she is a queen like she was in our home. 

“With love comes loss. But in the end, it’s all worth it.” I hope Kitty is safe and free wherever she is. We don’t deserve you, not yet, as Hiccup tells Toothless before the dragon flies off to the hidden world.

Many years later, Hiccup and his children get to meet Toothless. I hope to do the same, through stories of Kitty, of how much she meant to us, of how much she did for us so that we could talk about her to our children. May we meet again, Kitty. 

My sister and I will forever be grateful to Toothless and Hiccup, to ‘How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World’ for giving us the chance to bid farewell to Kitty in our own way like we couldn’t in real life.