As recently discussed, not everything is yours to keep.

However, there are things no one can take from you.

I’m the keeper of my Daddy’s unfinished novel and my Grandma’s rosary.

I once got to sing for an astronaut, and he shook my hand.

I have known both Mozzarella and Fontina Rosenberg.

And, kittens, by gazing upon these many screens with me, so have you.

Funny thing, isn’t it, coming to genuinely know and sincerely love a cat you’ve never formally met. Yet I have read your emails and heard your heart-jammed voices. I have seen your exclamation points and felt the warmth of your adulation (not for me, for the fabulous fromages).

You have known and loved these cheeseheads with the kind of love that longs to hug, but can live without it. You are so pure in heart, you have felt your love leap from your chest at the mere description of these mighty beings. This is not the first time or the fiftieth you have done such a deed.

And I love you, more and more, for it.

Perhaps the most delicious dimension of such love is the fact that you frankly cannot lose it, much less have it grubbed from your hands. Once you have given away a piece of your heart, the remaining void, all glimmering and golden, warm and honeyed, is yours to keep.

I know you’re already besotted with Mozzarella, all melty inside every time he oozes through your mind. But I would be wretchedly remiss if I didn’t tilt this blog towards his fellow fromage, dainty Fontina.

Our cheese cabal came from a single shelter, and their grizzled grins are so similar we can’t imagine they’re not kin. (The only possible explanation otherwise: they were both created by Jim Henson. Don’t tell me you can’t see Grover throwing his long, wild blue arms around these two and hugging tight.)

Ancient, infinitely awesome appearances are not all Team Cheese bears in common, however. Much like Mozz, Fontina is full of fun and life’s very fullness. In her (many) years, she has let life gentle her rather than make her hard; with her (many, maniacal) neighbors in Suite FIV, she has shown tenderness rather than teeth. Softer than the cheese that bears her name, ‘Tina is in fact a living breath of tenderness, all affection and ease. She is too old to be much afraid anymore, too kind to withhold warmth from any living creature.

When it comes to sweetness, you could almost say the cheese stands alone…except that she doesn’t. Down the hall from Suite FIV, she’s got a googly-eyed brother with an even bigger heart.

Somehow, when the angels were dispensing The Kindest Cats In The Universe, Tabby’s Place got two.

And whether they should be adopted or finish their fromage-majestic days with us, Mozzarella, and Fontina, and the love they’ve awakened within us, are ours to keep.

Forever.

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