Two cats and one popular Twitter artist helped unite a man and woman separated by more than 4,600 miles.
It all started on Twitter — specifically, with the account called "poorly drawn cats." The account's premise is pretty simple: Artist Heloísa Nora uses photos of people's cats and draws them. The drawings don't have a lot of details, but they're still perfect in how they really do capture each individual cat.
Grant Schroeder was following the account when he decided to try to get a commission of his cat, Luna, then a cute little black kitten with green eyes.
Nora made the drawing in 2019 and posted it to her account as she normally does. That's when Emma Ferguson, of the United Kingdom, took notice. She also had a cat named Luna. After seeing Nora's drawing, Ferguson went to Schroeder's account.
"I saw a pic on his account of him holding his Luna. Cute boy with cat — must follow, of course!" she told NPR.
Schroeder then did the natural thing of taking a look at Ferguson's profile and saw her cats.
"So I then messaged her on Twitter, saying, 'Hey, your cats are cute,'" he told NPR. "We then just started talking about our cats, getting to know each other, and eventually we started FaceTiming every day and slowly fell in love with each other."
FaceTiming was the only way the couple could see each other at first because Schroeder lived in Oregon at the time while Ferguson was in Liverpool, England.
The pair finally met in person in January 2020, when Schroeder hopped on a plane. He returned a few weeks later. The plan was for Ferguson to fly to Oregon in May 2020, but by then the coronavirus pandemic and its travel restrictions were in full force. The two finally reunited in August 2021 after more than a year of travel delays.
"We had known from the start that we both loved each other and wanted to make this work," Schroeder said.
The two got engaged last New Year's Eve and got married on July 24.
"Obviously, I had no clue that I was about to find my wife through Twitter, but things have a funny way of turning out," he said.
Ferguson had similar thoughts.
"I just thought I'd get to see posts of his cat on my timeline," she said. "I got a lot more than that, and I'm very glad I did."
Nora said she is incredibly happy for the couple and the part she played in uniting them serendipitously.
"It's nice what we can do with the internet these days," she said. "I would've never imagined that a cat drawing would result in a beautiful story."
The couple now lives together in Liverpool with two cats, Leighton, "an 11-year-old angel of a girl," and Phil, a stray who has taken a liking to their house and the food and naps that accompany it, Grant said.
As for the two Lunas, Schroeder's is much bigger than she was in the illustration and is living with his parents in Oregon. Ferguson's Luna died following an illness.
The couple said they have plans to get a third cat and already have a name picked out — Cheddar.
"They will be big and orange and beautiful, we hope," Schroeder said.
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