About three years ago, I came home from a long double shift and my mom greeted me at the door with, “Don’t be mad,” which is usually code for me to fix something that wasn’t broken. 

“What did you do?”

She led me into the laundry room and produced a tiny, shivering, scratched-up feral kitten about the size of a grapefruit. “I found it on the porch with a chicken,” she said. Cue the Sarah McLachlan music.

I dutifully picked it up, checked under the hood and declared it female. 

“Fine,” I said, and the next morning I took it to Planned Pethood Cares in Lake Panasoffkee for an exam, spay and hopeful adoption.

At reception, they asked for a name. I looked at her raccoon tail and mischievous little face. “Rocki, with an i,” I exclaimed with conviction.

In the waiting room, I got swept up in the rescue energy of other pet parents and found myself chiming in. “She showed up with a chicken,” I said. “She must have been through a lot.” Then I cracked a lame dad joke. “Which came first the chicken or the cat?”

After the exam, I was called in and the vet said, “She is a he.” I then marched back into the lobby, held him up like Simba and declared, “It’s a BOY!” which inspired raucous applause. 

“Ok, you win, Rocky with a y,” I told him on the way home. Cuteness as a survival strategy is very Darwinian and I’m all about it.

I never intended to invite another cat into the mix because my mom already had hers. But looking back, I realize that while I do all the things to keep Rocky alive, he’s the one who keeps me going. He brings a kind of quiet, cuddly joy that sneaks in through the cracks and stays.

Yes, he drives me nuts when he steps on my laptop during deadline, hogs my favorite pillow when there are five others available, and plots daily raids on the hamster cage. But when he’s not waiting in the window, I worry. And when he greets me at the door, I melt.

As for the whereabouts of our dear mother hen, I hope she’s still out there somewhere, guiding lost little kittens to their forever homes.

Photos by Gina Horan