Rex

aka: RexRod,

aka : Rex-a-roni,

aka: Rexer

The best damn cat to ever live in my world!!!

We had to let Rex cross over the Rainbow Bridge on Saturday and it was a very hard thing to do, harder than I ever dreamed.  I have always thought of myself as compassionate and caring but this was an animal.  I come from a back ground where you name a chicken and then two months later you asked about “Ole Daisy” and Granny told you you ate her last Sunday for dinner!!!!  You never named anything on my uncle’s farm once you ate “Ole Daisy”! 

My Mother always had a dog.  Mostly small dogs or lap dogs as some people call them but little yappers is what me and my Dad called them!!  She went through her Great Dane Stage which was short thank goodness.

So when my lovely wife wanted to get a cat when in the early part of our lives together I had really no experience with them but knew they were much easier than dogs, so I was in.  It was 1999 and we had a dear friend Alyce who was highly allergic to cat dander.  So my wife on a business trip to Minneapolis visited a girlfriend who had Cornish Rex Cats.  They are hypo-allergenic cats!!  She was so excited came home and started looking for a breeder near us.  Well found one in Nashville went up got Rex and the rest as they say is history!  Seventeen years I shared a house with that cat and he never caused one seconds trouble.  I knew he was special but you never know how special until your wife looks up at you and says “We need to let him go”  I never would have believed the impact that statement had on me even now as I type I’m teary eyed.  For god sakes it was a cat!  Nope he was a family member and a damned important one.  I never realized until that moment that he meant so much to me.  What a treat to share a house with him.

The funniest story ever about Rex is this one:  As you know by reading this blog we entertain a great deal.  One weekend shortly after we bought him we had a dinner party on the guest list was my boss and his wife, a cat lover.  They came in and my boss saw Rex and then found out we bought him.  He states” Good God man you bought a Cat!” I said “Yes” Then my wife told him it was a Cornish Rex.  He said he thought there were only two kinds of Cats a Cat and a Calico!!  I thought my wife and his wife and me were going to die laughing!!!

My wife’s brother gave him the Rex Rod name.  He loved that cat as well.  You see everyone who met him liked him.  He was the calmest sweetest cat I have ever known. 

He slept for seventeen years on my wife chest every night, she got into bed he jumped up on the bed the covers were thrown back and he climbed into his place.  I have to believe that is going to be a very lonely place for the next couple of weeks.

This is as good of a place as any to mention Cleo.  She is our Calico Cornish Rex.  CRAZY as a bed bug, and has been forever.  She for the last four days was really nuts.  My wife and I believe now she was trying to tell us that Rex was so sick.  After the X-Rays we found out she was so right!  We got back home from the vet my wife cleaned everything and Cleo has calmed down so much it is uncanny.  She lays on my wife’s lap slept next to her last night, not on her chest, but next to her where Rex did sometimes when he got over heated.

The house isn’t the same with Rex gone.  In his later years he had slowed a great deal.  Not jumping and running all over like before more of the laid back gentlemen enjoying his golden years eating the best food and laying in the sun all day.  You know the other side of that Rainbow Bridge is beginning to look like a great place we have Ramey now Rex.  And if you believe like I believe Rex is jumping from my mom, Billie, to my wife’s mom, Bobbie’s lap back and forth. I will never forget the last time I was able to rub that cat’s head and grab his ears.  I can only hope he knows my heart has never had paw prints on it before but it sure does now. 

Rexer, miss you buddy.  Take care of Billie and Bobbie for us.  See you on the other side.

Peace,

The Blessed Man