In January of 2020, I had to kill Cat Matthews. You might be thinking, Holy shit. What compels someone to say such a thing outside of clickbait or self-importance? But it’s true. And it was the hardest and greatest thing to ever happen to me.
It was the morning Kobe Bryant died. I remember it vividly because, A: I’ve never mourned a celebrity death more in my life, and B: my parents’ home was enveloped in unusually dense fog — we live about 15 minutes from the accident site. If that wasn’t terrible enough, I had just been discharged from a week-long, critical stay at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles — about 45 minutes from home. At the time, I was barely in my 20s, a fresh college dropout who had left all her friends across the country at school. I was a month into my first serious heartbreak with my recently ex-boyfriend, who had also been my only remaining friend in town, and we had just dissolved our dream-pop duo, Niña. The cherry on top of my misery sundae? A five-centimeter tear along my trachea caused by a medical procedure gone awry. It left me immobile, immunocompromised, and — most significantly — completely mute.
Those early days of isolation at home were bleak. My daily routine looked something like this: wake up, cry in silence (because I couldn’t make any noise), make coffee, visit with my home nurse for blood draws and vitals, cry a little more on the couch, antibiotics round one, dissociate while watching Twin Peaks, communicate with my parents and siblings using a text-to-speech app (a lifesaver at the time), antibiotics round two, and then a nightly panic attack after dinner. That was followed by a beta blocker and, finally, bedtime. Rinse and repeat.
During this season of silence, I had nightmares about singing and speaking. One dream, in particular, stuck with me: I was on stage at a middle school talent show (already a nightmare in itself), standing at the microphone. I took a deep breath, let out a belt — and froze. My voice was unrecognizable, and not in a good way. When I tried to speak, it sounded like a stranger’s voice coming out of me. My mother, who slept next to me every night after my injury, had to calm me down because I was crying in my sleep. I was haunted by the idea that I might never sing — or sound — the same again.
I grew up in Los Angeles, so I was exposed to music and art at a very young age. My mom loves to tell a story about how, before I could walk, I would crawl toward our baby grand piano and hoist myself onto the bench. After watching Disney movies, I’d come home and play the melodies I remembered hearing in the theater. My parents saw past my inherent musical talent and focused on how much I simply loved music. They started me in classical piano lessons at four years old.
From there, I discovered a secret love for singing — but only in the shower or the driveway at night, where I thought no one could hear me. I spent the first 11 years of my life happily tucked behind the comfort of a piano. It wasn’t until my older sister convinced me to sing with her at a church talent show that I broke the ice. Like any good LA story, a big-wig vocal contractor in the congregation hired me to work for her on the spot. I quickly adapted to singing in recording studios and performing for strangers on a dime. Toward the end of high school, I began writing lyrics for songs my then-boyfriend made on a 4-track cassette recorder. We self-released our “for fun” project, Niña, with zero promotion, and suddenly, we were on Spotify playlists and had a Paradigm agent sending us out on the road. I enjoyed making that music, but I knew it wasn’t what I wanted my legacy to sound like. I didn’t identify with it.
After my injury, I suddenly didn’t have anything to identify with. I felt like a newborn in the worst way possible: I could barely walk, definitely couldn’t talk, and struggled to process my emotions. I wasn’t in school, yet I was grappling with the existential questions of my early 20s while also mourning my former life. I had nothing but time and spent it wallowing in self-pity — until I couldn’t anymore. There’s only so much time one can spend feeling sorry for themselves.
When I burned through my self-pity supply, I forced myself to sit at the piano and confront my situation. Sure, maybe I wouldn’t sing again. Or if I did, maybe it wouldn’t sound the way I remembered. I started having long, challenging conversations with myself about my past, my uncertain future, and who I was in the present moment. I tore down every mental wall and discovered more about myself in solitude than I had in my entire life.
Then, the floodgates opened. I heard melodies in my head and lyrics so loud I couldn’t ignore them. I spent hours at the piano, arranging parts in my mind, furiously writing lyrics, and spinning my challenges into full-length songs. Before I knew it, I had a full body of work — songs so complete in my head and heart, I knew exactly how they should sound.
After nearly three months of silence, I rebuilt myself from the ground up. And guess what? I got my voice back. Thanks to brilliant doctors and extensive vocal rehabilitation, I transformed those songs from ideas in my head into fully realized tracks — recorded on a 1970s tape machine, no less. So yes, I had to hold a funeral for the Cat Matthews I was before my life drastically changed. I mourned properly until I found the will to create new life and embrace change. I am who I am today — and I have the songs I do — because of everything that happened. Who knew my metamorphosis would be disguised as a life-threatening tracheal injury? I certainly didn’t.
