Remembering10 pages
It smells like home — Simba & Pepper
A familiar scent catches Pepper’s attention at the Rainbow Bridge. A 10-page comic inspired by Simba and Pepper’s story of love, loss, and home.
After Pepper died,
she came to the Rainbow Bridge.
Now she helps new arrivals check in.
Pepper: That smell…
It smells like home.
Sign: New arrivals
Pepper: Are you Simba?
Simba: Who are you?
How do you know my name?
Pepper: We were born together.
We always curled up
right next to each other.
Pepper: But…
you weren't this big.
March 13, 2025.
The little gray kitten
was Pepper.
She died just a few days later.
Simba kept growing.
She never saw him grow up.
Simba: Pepper?
Pepper: So this is what you look like
all grown up.
Simba: Yeah.
I grew up.
Simba: I got so big,
they said I looked
like a teddy bear.
Simba: And I had six kittens.
All orange.
Simba: When they opened the door,
we'd all gather around them.
Simba was only a year and a half old.
Doctors found pneumonia, fluid buildup,
and previously undetected heart disease.
Simba: They visited me that last night.
I saw them.
I could smell home.
Pepper: Simba…
look how far we walked.
You didn't have to
stop for breath.
He breathed in. Then out.
Breathing came easily again.
Simba: But I still miss them.
My mom and all six of my kittens
are still there.
Pepper: Then let’s look in on them.
Together.
Simba: I found Pepper here.
We’re both okay.
We just miss you.
The story behind the comic
A free custom pet comic,
inspired by Simba & Pepper.
We create free personalized pet comics from the photos and memories you share—celebrating their little habits, your life together, and the love that stays.
In their family’s own words:
This is simba (orange) and pepper (grey). They were born unexpectedly on March 13 2025. Pepper passed a couple days later. Simba held on and we thought he’d live a long life. He grew so big like and looked like a teddy bear.
Before getting fixed he ended up having 6 kittens with his mom, all which look orange like them. Sometimes he liked to sit at the front door with them, or lay with the kittens.
Last week he began breathing weird and didn’t get better so he was taken to the emergency vet. They discovered pneumonia and fluid in his lungs and heart and that he had been living with heart disease that had been undetectable before.
The night before he passed my mom and I went to see him in the hospital so he could see and smell us. It was hard watching him fight to breathe. Hours later we got the call that he passed. He was only 1 1/2 years old.
The loss was sudden and unexpected, but he’s not in pain anymore and with his sister pepper again. We still have his mom and kittens to remember him by
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