Remembering Jason

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