Our 17 year old kitty Simba joined his beloved brother, Mouse today [View all]

[mnhtnbb]

at the Rainbow Bridge.

They weren't really brothers, but born to two separate litters in the same home.
I answered an ad for 'free kittens' in early December 1995 in Lincoln, NE.
When I got to the house, a little old lady opened the door and invited me in.
There were cats everywhere! Resting on a chair was the biggest cat I'd ever
seen--must have been more than 20 pounds--and probably the father of
both Mouse and Simba. The litters had been born 5 days apart, but the
little old cat lady had paired the two kitties up because they seemed to like each other.

I took them both home. Tanya, the dog we'd adopted from the pound about 6 months earlier,
accepted them both. Mouse adored Tanya and would always come lie down next to her.
We often wondered if he thought Tanya was his mother as she was black and he was
a black/gray tabby.

They did the job for which they'd been hired--the 'mice' we'd been hearing soon moved
out of our house.

When we moved to Chapel Hill in 2000 all the pets came with us. Tanya rode in hubby's car;
Mouse and Simba each had a carrier and rode together in the back seat of my car.

We used to put them outside at night. Simba got so that he really didn't want to go out;
he would hide under the baby grand piano. Often I had to crawl under it to get him so
he could go outside.

Being outside is probably what saved both kitties the night our house burned down
in 2007. There was no time to look for kitties that might have been hiding. Tanya
came out of the house with us. The day after the fire, I came over to the house,
calling for both of them. Simba peeked his head out of an opening a firefighter
had chopped where there had been a window in order to gain access on the lower level.
No Mouse. The next day I came over several times, calling for Mouse. He finally came
out from underneath an elevated walkway--where he'd been hiding--and let me pick him
up. He was really scared...and so happy to see Simba!

After Mouse died in 2009, Simba would go around to all the hiding places that Mouse
had made for himself in our new house. He was clearly missing Mousie and looking for him. One time,
when hubby and I were talking about Mouse, Simba came over to my chair, looked
up at me, as though he were understanding every word we were saying. Both my
husband and I were convinced that Simba knew we were talking about Mouse--
and wanted to join the conversation. It was a really eerie moment.

So, now the kitty boys are together again. RIP Simba and Mouse.

[IMG][/IMG]