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After stumbling across a photograph of a blind kitten in need of a home, Bryanna Rosario knew she had to step up. She decided to bring the tiny cat back to her house, naming her Lime. And soon she watched as her new kitten became extremely close to an unlikely companion.
For Rosario, adopting a kitten with special needs was nothing new. In fact, two years before she took Lime in, she was the proud owner of another blind cat named Lemon. Rosario had added Lemon to her family back in October 2016.
But Lemon’s time with Rosario would prove to be short. According to a Facebook page where Rosario chronicled the cat’s life, Lemon had a laundry list of heart problems. Among them were an atrial septal defect, as well as a ventricular septal defect.
“His heart murmur is at a five, and the doctor believes his heart has an obstruction,” Rosario explained on Facebook. “He’s also on the cusp of going into heart failure. Basically, his heart is like Swiss cheese and isn’t pumping blood where it’s supposed to go.”
But Rosario was determined to give Lemon the best possible life in the short time he had. “My time with Lemon is going to be short but the sweetest,” she continued. “When he starts showing signs that he’s not happy or that he’s in pain is when I will say goodbye.”
But before that day came, Rosario decided to draw up a bucket list for Lemon. Included on the list were items such as scaling a tree and using his paws to create art. Together, the pair fit a lot of experiences into their nearly three months together.
Just after Christmas in 2016 though, Rosario had to make the tough decision to put Lemon down. “He was truly an amazing cat,” she later told Meow.af. And it would take her nearly two years to bring another cat into the fold, along with her other pets.
Rosario had two tabby cats named Deadpool and Rajah, as well as a pit bull named Letty and a Yorkshire terrier named Jordin. Then, on March 26, 2018, a kitten came into the world that would steal Rosario’s heart. And soon it would join her brood of four-legged fur babies.
Through a pet fostering page, Rosario saw a picture that stopped her in her tracks. In it, a woman was holding a steel gray kitten that was blind. “I couldn’t believe it! That little nugget in the photo looked exactly like Lemon,” she wrote on Instagram.
The Jacksonville Humane Society in Jacksonville, Florida, had taken in the days-old kitten, along with her sister. Initially named Rosita, the cat’s “eyes were completely infected and eaten away – this is probably what had happened to Lemon’s eyes,” as Bryanna explained on Facebook.
In fact, the cats were in such bad shape that the shelter staff feared they wouldn’t last two days. However, they made it. And they quickly transformed into normal kittens with heightened senses, since they had lost their eyesight.
In spite of her visual similarities to Lemon, Rosita had a stronger heart than her predecessor. This meant she could undergo an operation to remove the dead tissue from her eyes. In the meantime, Rosario had become “obsessed” with following the blind kitten’s story, as shared by her foster mom.
On June 1, 2018, Rosario decided to make her admiration for the kitten official. She packed her dogs into the car and made the five-hour drive to Jacksonville to meet Rosita for the first time. Secretly, though, the pet lover had some trepidation about their first meeting.
“Even though I was so excited to meet little [Rosita], I was nervous,” Rosario explained in an Instagram story. “I felt guilty as I didn’t want to replace Lemon and didn’t want to have any expectations about [Rosita]. I felt very guarded.”
However, as soon as Rosario met Rosita, all of that fear slipped away. “I knew she wasn’t replacing Lemon, Lemon just sent her my way,” Rosario wrote. And in an apparent tribute to Lemon, Rosario changed the kitten’s name from Rosita to Lime.
The day after she officially adopted Lime, Rosario took to Facebook to share the news with those who had previously followed Lemon’s bucket list journey. “There were many emotions yesterday, and I’m still very emotional,” she began.
“No one could ever replace Lemon. Period,” Rosario stated. “Lime is a different kitten with a different personality, but I get a second chance with a little gray, blind kitten. Lemon was such an epic soul that touched many people and changed my life so much. I can’t wait to continue my journey with Lime by my side.”
Her experiences with Lemon also assured Rosario that Lime would quickly adjust to her new life. After all, her first blind cat had proven to be adept and adaptable. And just as Rosario imagined, Lime quickly became part of the family.
According to Love Meow, Lime came into Rosario’s home, “confident, brave, playful and happy.” She spent her days following her new mom around the house. And she did so by relying on her other senses, since she couldn’t see.
Those senses came in handy in other ways, too. “There is no sneaking around this little one. When she hears a can of food open, everyone better move out of her way,” Rosario said. To that end, she told Meow.af, “You can’t leave any food out or Lime will find it!”
Rosario did do her best to make life as easy as possible for Lime. For one thing, the pet mom tried to keep her furniture in the same positions all the time. This allowed Lime to walk around without bumping into any unexpected obstructions.
But Lime lived without fear – and with few limitations. Rosario said that Lime tended to sleep “at the highest spot of the cat tree.” Plus, she could ensnare flies in mid-air, which led Rosario to joke that Lime had better vision than her tabby cat siblings, Rajah and Deadpool.
And as for her relationship with the two tabbies, Lime reportedly “[adored] spending time with Rajah and Deadpool.” All three cats came from similar backgrounds, after all. Each of them had been rescued and bottle-fed as kittens.
Of all the new friendships that Lime made, perhaps the most astounding was with Rosario’s pit bull, Letty. Less than two weeks after she brought Lime home, Rosario logged onto Instagram to provide an update. Here, she declared that the duo had “become BFFs very quickly and love each other so much.”
Five months on, Rosario told Meow.af that the pair had become totally entwined with one another. “Lime loves her sister, Letty. Lime loves to chase Letty’s tail and play with whatever toy Letty has,” she said, before reiterating that “they truly are best friends.”
Over time, Rosario realized that she could use her pets’ special relationship – and her social media account – to do good. “I wanted to show how amazing it is to adopt a special needs kitty,” she wrote on Instagram. “But what’s even more amazing is breaking the stereotypes about dogs… and cats being best friends.”
In their short amount of time together, Lime and Letty have had plenty of stories to tell. In October 2018 Rosario heartbreakingly shared that Letty “may have had a stroke.” And the concerned owner explained, the dog was, “unable to use the right side of her body.”
Letty had actually slipped a disc, which injured her spinal cord and ultimately caused her to suffer a stroke. Fortunately, though, the dog didn’t need surgery – only intense physical therapy. “The prognosis is good,” Rosario later wrote on Instagram.
Unsurprisingly, Rosario also revealed that Letty had a very special caretaker. “Of course Lime is happy to play nurse,” she wrote. And all of that helped Letty remain “in good spirits” on her road to recovery.
As Letty healed, Lime waited patiently to be able to play with her best friend once again. And, once the pit bull felt a bit better, the pair resumed their favorite activities, like sharing treats and bird-watching.
These special moments only proved to Rosario that her decision to adopt Lime was the right one. “Lime is just an amazing, loving, playful, funny, confident little fluff!” she told Meow.af. “I love her so, so much that I can’t fit it into words. Lime makes our whole lives full.”
Of course, that didn’t mean that Lime had come in to replace Lemon. Instead, Rosario wrote on Facebook, “I think about my little Lemon everyday and miss him always.” And, sometimes, that made watching Lime grow up feel “bittersweet.”
“I start to think how Lemon would’ve looked or how he would be at Lime’s age,” Rosario went on. However, she couldn’t understate the “huge impact” Lime has had on her family. And she could only thank Lemon for that.
“Without Lemon, I probably wouldn’t have adopted Lime,” Rosario explained on Facebook. “Now, don’t get me wrong, Lime is a completely different cat with her own personality and quirks, but she was absolutely the best decision I ever made.”
Both of her cats have demonstrated to Rosario the capabilities that blind cats have. Specifically, that they can still live lives as fulfilling as their seeing counterparts. “A lot of people feel bad for blind cats, and they shouldn’t,” as she put it to Meow.af.
To that end, Rosario reminded pet lovers everywhere not to ignore the possibility of adopting a feline like Lime. “Blind cats are amazing creatures that should be celebrated!” she said. “They need love just like other cats do.”
Rosario appeared to take her own words to heart, too. Just after losing Lemon in early 2018 she started the LemonAide Rescue. As she explained on Facebook, the organization was set up “to try to keep [Lemon’s] memory alive.”
The charity strived to “focus more on the ‘lemons,’” Rosario explained, referring to the animals that had imperfections like Lemon had. She further noted that her efforts were “emotionally tolling.” But she continued to take on the most critical of cases, in order to give the animals better lives.
By August of 2018 though, Rosario had to put a pause on her efforts with LemonAide when she experienced a loss in her family. However, she vowed that she would, “never stop helping animals in need.”
Amazingly, Rosario’s efforts in just eight months were enough to save more than 70 pets. “I will continue to do as much as I can. Maybe in the future I will start over again,” the pet mom of five suggested. But it was clear that she had already made a huge impact with all of the special pets she’d saved, including her blind kittens Lemon and Lime.