Once, or maybe twice upon a time, two little fur-balls were born in a barn on a cool April morning on the outskirts of the Emerald City—a.k.a Seattle. This brother and sister Manx tag team were rescued from said barn within weeks of their birth. Somewhere shortly after their birth my ex-partner Chris and I were in the process of caring for his aging Manx cat Mason. Mason was in the final stages of cancer and we were fortunate enough to have several weeks to love on that big orange boy cat and say our good-byes. Once it got to a place where he was no longer eating, we knew it was time to take him to the vet and let him go gently into that night.
On the day after that traumatic event, Chris and I were hanging around our apartment. I walked back to our shared office and there he was looking at cats on Petfinders.com. I saw this and laughed. He said to me, “Look at this cute Manx brother and sister combo. I was thinking that if we were going to get another cat we should get a pair. Your cat Angel is getting old too. If we got a pair then they’d have each other, when it’s Angel’s time.” I looked at him and laughed, because I though the very same thing just the day before. We also thought that having two kittens in our home would help us with the loss of Mr Mason.
If memory serves, we both agreed and we may have very well called the woman who had rescued “Will & Grace” and saw them that day. Once there, Chris and I were ushered into the bathroom where this duo were being held. OMG! They were so tiny and so cute! They stole our hearts from the moment we saw them.
Both Chris and I knew that the names Will & Grace were too gay—even for us! At one point Chris put Will on the counter of the bathroom sink. Will started to climb up Chris’ back “like a rock climber”, so Chris said. “We should name him Rocky!” And so it was written. We took Rocky and Grace home that afternoon to our Eastlake apartment. We cloistered them in our second (and unused), bathroom for the next few weeks, to help slowly integrate them into the house with my cat Angel. The day after we brought them home I decided to rename Grace, Rose, after my paternal grandmother Rose—another short, sweet, gray-haired, little lady. And so was born: Rock & Ro!!
When we got Rocky and Rose, they were 6 weeks old. The woman who rescued them didn’t know the exact date they were born in that barn. So we counted 6 weeks back from when we got them & chose April 1, 2006 as their birthday. It was as good a day as any, the day the Apple Computer was born, April Fools Day, and also easily remembered—bonus points!
And here we are twelve years later. My cat Angel is long gone, and Rocky and Rose live with me in our apartment in Asbury Park, NJ. When Chris and I split up, I ended up with R&R because as Manx cats I was the human they bonded with, and we didn’t want to split up brother and sister, even though Rocky and Angel were very tight buddies. Angel went with Chris, and the furry Manx pair came with me. They drove in their carriers, across country from Seattle to Asbury, in the passenger seat right next to me the whole trip. We found kitty friendly motels along the way … and the rest is history.
So happy birthday to my sweet, loving, big and little fur-balls: Rocky & Rose!
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