Recently, I thought about the day
when Jason first came into my life and stayed with me for sixteen wonderful
years. The day he passed away was truly one of the most heart-wrenching days of
my life. The sudden realization of never seeing him again was unbearable. I
thought about the day I met Jason, and how our meeting came to be. My girl
friend, Kelly, called me that morning to tell me she found a kitten roaming
about the department store parking lot where she just finished shopping. She
said “honey, I remember you telling me how much you wanted to get a cat. Well,
you just have to see this little guy. He’s just adorable”
So I rushed out to meet Kelly, sitting in her car on the parking lot. There,
perched on her shoulder was this tiny, bright eyed, orange and white, four
legged fuzz ball. When I picked him up, he nudged against my cheek, started
purring and began kneading the front of my neck. He certainly was a friendly
little guy, but had a terrible smell from feces residue caked in his coat. It
was nothing that soap and water couldn’t cure, so I decided to take him to my
apartment (picking up cat food and a litter box along the way) and give him a
bath (an event most cats find very distasteful). But he began purring at full
volume when the warm water ran over his body. After his bath, I put him down on
the floor, and his innate curiosity instantly kicked in to begin checking out
every nook and cranny in the place.
The next day, when I came home from work, he was nowhere to be found. I
searched everywhere, so I thought. “But where could he be”? He just couldn’t
vanish into thin air! In my fear and frustration, I sat on the sofa to think
and gather my thoughts. Did I miss some secret hiding place he happened to come
upon? When I leaned back against a cushion, I heard a loud squeal behind me,
and lo and behold, there he was, curled up behind the cushion, nervously
glaring back at me as if to ask “why did you sit on me? I picked him up to calm
him and, as if he understood, asked him to forgive me. It was then I decided to
name him “Jason”, a name I felt just seemed to fit him. In the ensuing years,
Jason and I bonded intensely and became the best of pals. He loved getting his
baths and followed me around wherever I went, like a puppy dog in a cats body.
Some people think all cats are snobbish, unsociable creatures that simply put
on acts to get what they want from their masters. But Jason was nothing like
that, adding so much to my experience of life with his love and concern, and
his totally unbridled companionship. Jason grew up to be quite a large, long-haired
”tabby” and constantly shed wherever he went. There was hair everywhere, even
in the refrigerator. How it got there always astonished me. On bright sunny
days he enjoyed sitting out on the balcony and peering down thru the railing
bars, watching people going to and fro, while wearing the harlequin style
sunglasses I brought to protect his eyes from the bright sun. It became an
almost daily ritual that comically endeared him to everyone in the building.
Our relationship went on for the better part of sixteen years. Then, one day, I
noticed him getting quite thin and lethargic, gradually losing his appetite and
the desire to go prancing around the house. He got progressively worse, day
after day and was becoming a pretty sick kitty. So I took him to the vet to
find out what was going on. After an extensive checkup and many tests, it
turned out that Jason, my loyal and wonderful best friend, was going into renal
failure and the prognosis for his survival was not very good, maybe two months
at best with proper medication, treatment, and lots of love. My heart ached and
my eyes filled with tears at the thought that I would soon be without him. But
there was nothing I could do except to shower him with the same love I had
given him throughout his life and pray for happiness in his coming journey. For
the next few weeks I would sleep on the sofa, picking him up to rest on the
blanket crevassed between my legs. At first, he had enough strength to crawl up
onto my chest and gaze mournfully into my eyes. Later on I had to lift him up
to rest with me.
l like to think that Jason knew he was soon to enter a new world; a new life,
and he finally did. After waking up one morning I noticed him lying on his
side, legs outstretched, under the dining room table. He had passed during the
night. His sightless eyes were wide open and I bent down to close them and kiss
him goodbye. My veterinarian sent a staff member to recover Jason’s body and,
at my request, have him cremated. His ashes were spread in the surf not far
from where we lived. Jason was truly “A Cat For All Times”. I still think about
him and miss him after all these years. Jason, “thank you for being a very big
and important part of my life”.
Mel Salvat
Cathedral City, California