My mother has been married to the same man for 58 years. She has five children and 10 grandchildren. And yet, her favorite creature on this earth, the one featured exclusively on her iPhone screen saver, is a Maine Coon named Aggie.
As it turned out, that feline ended up becoming the most famous figure in the family.
The night of the Palisades Fire, I was dispatched to our family home to retrieve some heirlooms and — most importantly — my mother’s three cats. As I was zipping Aggie into her carrier, she slipped from my grip and bolted out the door into the burning neighborhood. I searched in vain, but as the fire started to consume houses on our block (and would destroy ours), I was forced to flee with just two of the cats. Aggie was lost.
My mother was devastated. At the time, she was going through chemotherapy. She had just lost the home and community she had lived in for 50 years, not to mention all her worldly possessions — the books, the artwork, her beloved piano. But in the weeks after the fire, it was the loss of Aggie that haunted her most.
And then, a miracle! On March 8, a full two months after the fire, my mother got a call from an animal shelter. Aggie had been found not far from our house. She was sick and starving and most of her fur had been burned off, but somehow, she had survived.
I’ve been a journalist my entire professional life, which is a job that requires a sharp news sense. But in the case of Aggie, I got scooped by my younger sister. When my mother was reunited with Aggie, my sister (a millennial, of course) filmed it and promptly posted the short clip to TikTok. That clip, which garnered more than a million views in 24 hours and has 9 million-plus views in total, turned my 82-year-old mother into a viral sensation. A steady stream of news vans made their way to the Airbnb where my parents were staying. It started with local outlets — KTLA and KTTV — that aired stories about Aggie. It then went national. USA Today, CNN and Good Morning America all picked up the feel-good saga of the fires.
My mother has never sought attention, and self-promotion is largely frowned upon in our family. But the story of Aggie took on a life of its own and made her and her cat symbols of hope and survival. Aggie and my mother now reside in a small house in Mar Vista, and life has returned to normal. My mother was, however, invited to be a keynote speaker at CatCon, the biggest cat-centric pop culture event in the world. She politely declined.
This story appeared in the Jan. 2 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.