Farewell, Rocky
On the Saturday night before Thanksgiving a few weeks ago, we had to say good-bye to a beloved family friend. And we cried.
Her name was Rocky. She was 17. She had started her life by being pulled out of a trash bin by some kindly people who discovered her when she was only a few days old.
Rocky’s siblings had died. Her rescuers offered her to Sharon, who immediately fell in love with this struggling little kitten and nursed her to health.
And, of course, Sharon named her Rocky because she had survived horrible circumstances and overcome long, long odds — just like the movie hero of the same name.
Within weeks, Rocky took over the house, of course. She was joined, a bit later, by a male cat named Max. Max and Rocky would grow up, not really liking each other — sometimes fighting — but still managing to share things.
Rocky and Max would both climb into bed so they could snuggle up to Sharon’s feet on cold winter nights. They both loved to be cuddled, though Rocky was a bit stand-offish — likely because she had never fully recovered from the trauma of being tossed into that trash-bin.
The two cats co-existed — with some rough patches — until that gut-wrenching day when we had to separate them in 2017. We were selling our Clovis home to move, for a year, to a downtown Fresno apartment, as we prepared for an eventual move to what we thought would be our retirement home on the Central Coast.
Rocky had come into our lives first, so she would stay in our family. We drove Max to meet his new family in Northern California. Saying good-bye to him was difficult — really hard — but we knew he was getting a fine home with people who would care for him the rest of his life.
We never saw Max again, or heard about what happened to him.
But the move to the downtown apartment also meant Rocky had to find a new home. The apartment just wasn’t big enough for a cat. So Rocky went to live with our son Brad and Nicole, his significant other, at his condo in Fresno.
And it was a fine match, indeed. Rocky had, of course, known Brad since she was a baby and had always liked climbing onto his shoulders when he was working at his desk.
Rocky and Brad got along so well that — when a year had passed and Sharon and I were ready to move to the coast and take Rocky with us, she refused to get out from under the bed to join us.
So, reluctantly — but knowing that Rocky was in a good hands — we left her with Brad and Nicole. And they took oh-so-good care of her — even having that portrait painted of Rocky that you see on top of this page.
And then Brad and Nicole decided to move to Washington, D.C. We were in the midst of our retirement “travel” binge — going to Disney World, taking cross-country car trips to Iowa and beyond — rarely being home — and we were not in position to be able to re-adopt Rocky.
And along came Wes.
Wes was a journalism teacher at Fresno State, alongside Brad. He needed a place to live — so Brad rented him his condo — with the provision that Rocky the Cat came with it.
It could have all turned out badly, of course. Rocky and Wes might not have gotten along.
But they did — oh, yes, they did. Rocky took to Wes. And Wes fell in love with Rocky. For more than two years, Wes took care of Rocky as if he had raised her.
And then Sharon and I decided — after living full-time on the Central Coast for a few years — that we wanted to move back to the Valley.
And, yes, we wanted to take Rocky back — off of Wes’ hands.
We had to wait another year until our house in Madera County — just north of Fresno — was finished. During that year, we lived in airbnb’s and, for six months, in a condo we owned in Ames, Iowa.
But then we moved into our new home in early 2022. And, a few months later, Rocky came to live with us, again.
She was 15, going on 16. But it was as if she had never left us. She took to our new place immediately, and began “owning” it, as she had every other place she had lived in.
She would jump up on the bed at night to snuggle up. She would lie in front of an open sliding-glass door in spring and fall, soaking up the incoming son. She would jump up on the kitchen counter and onto our kitchen table.
And we let her. We let her because she was a wonderful, wonderful cat — who deserved, we thought, to have as easy a life as possible, considering the way she had started out. She was the mildest, most even-tempered pet we’d ever had — and, of course, we had her longer than any other animal we’d had.
For 18 months, everything was peachy — for Sharon, for me — and for Rocky. We knew she was aging — but we did not want to think about how this might all end.
The warning signs started last August or so.
She began tossing up food, perhaps once a week. We thought it had something to do with furballs. We bought her a gel medicine that she would lick off my fingers. She liked that. But it did not stem the problem.
And then came the last week of her life — 10 days before this past Thanksgiving. I won’t go into details. I’ll just say that it was becoming clear she had something very bad going on inside her — something medicine could not fix. We started talking about an “end game.”
It came faster than we anticipated and wanted. It was the Saturday night before Thanksgiving, and Rocky had been in increasing distress that day. Restless. Stomach issues. She was failing.
And that evening, suddenly, her whole body seemed to be in revolt. We knew it was time — that no medical intervention would save our little pet.
So we drove her to an all-night vet a few miles away. When we walked into the office, other couples were there with their pets, and it looked as if we were all there for the same reason. They were in tears.
Yes, the receptionist said. Of course, we euthanize pets.
Rocky had been quiet — oh, so quiet — inside her traveling case as we drove down. She remained quiet as we sat in the office, waiting for the vet or nurse to call us into an examining room.
But it was far too late for an exam. The vet assistant told us how this would go — that once she began injecting Rocky with solution that would put her to sleep — not the liquid that would end Rocky’s life — Rocky would have about five seconds of consciousness.
And as that vet assistant put Rocky on a table and prepared to give her that solution, I got down on my knees in front of our cat and petted her. And the last thing she did in her life was — purr. Yes, she was purring as I was petting her.
My face was right in front of hers. The last thing she saw was me, crying my eyes out.
Sharon and I left the examining room in tears. I somehow took care of the vet bill — which included provisions for Rocky to be cremated the next day — but I was crying too much to drive home. So Sharon — also in tears but in better shape than I was — got us there.
We could not sleep that night. The next day — a Sunday — I took my regular shift as docent at the Madera History Museum. As I told Sheryl — my fellow docent that day — about Rocky, I broke down again and cried.
That took place several times, with several people, over the next days.
Then the following Saturday, we received a condolence letter, signed by the staff at the vet’s office. And that letter had Rocky’s paw prints on it. More tears. That letter with Rocky’s paw prints are on the office bookshelf just in front of — and to the right of — our desk, where I’m typing this.
They will remain there the rest of my life.
So here we are — a little less than two months from that terrible Saturday night. And, you think, I’m writing more than a thousand words about a cat. Yes, a cat.
And I fully realize there are many important issues involving war and peace and presidential elections and seasonal illnesses that are making daily news.
But I don’t want to write about that, and you don’t want to read it.
No, I needed to write about Rocky the Cat — who gave us absolutely everything she had for 17 years. We loved her, and we tried to do the right thing for her on that Saturday night.
I hope, somehow, she understood that.