Jack

2001 - 2019

I cannot sum up 18 years of life in a short and sweet paragraph, so here we go…..

I met her when I was 24. I’m 42 now. You are a completely different person at 42 than you were at 24. People came and went, major life events occurred, and my furry BFF was there through it all.

To say Jack was the best cat ever is a limiting statement. She was never “just a cat”. To say she was more like a dog isn’t very accurate either. She never possessed the stereotypical cat-like qualities: she wasn’t a loner, and she cared very much about us and what was going on. She did however, have some dog-like qualities: she would follow me to my bedroom pretty much anytime I went in there; she was always down for a nap, any time of the day or night. In recent years, I would lie down in bed and soon would hear her feet, clop clop clop, laboring to get up her kitty stairs into bed with me. She would lie down next to me, always, with my arm on her and her head next to, or on my head. She would let out a sigh when she laid down and we would sleep together all the time. She would follow me to the bathroom too. If I ever brought food home, she demanded to at least have a sniff to decide whether it was worthy enough to eat. She loved people food: all kinds of chips, buttered toast, cupcakes, sour cream, meat, cookies, pie crust, salad, salad dressing, McDonald’s hamburgers, Nutri-Grain bars, yogurt… the list goes on.

She was found by an old roommate’s friend’s brother in the Popeye’s Chicken parking lot in North Hollywood around 5 or 6 weeks old with a sibling. They appeared to be abandoned. They took them home. The sibling died and they couldn’t keep Jack. They asked my roommate if she wanted her. She already had two cats and asked me if it was okay. I said sure! Jack had two black balls under her tail, and at the time, was too young to be fixed. My roommate named her Jack and after a couple of months, this “boy” started meowing loudly and rolling around all over the carpet… I thought “Is He in heat… is Jack a girl???” I lifted her tail and checked out what we thought were her “balls”… it turned out that was just the color of her fur… no balls. (Ironically she was the most ballsy cat I ever had). However, it was too late. Her name was Jack. People always asked “why don’t you just call her Jackie?” Because her name is Jack. Just Jack.

Jack almost immediately claimed me as her person. We’d hang out when I was at home, but I knew she belonged to my roommate. Fast forward a year or so, my roommate got engaged to her dumbass boyfriend who also had a cat. Jack never liked him (she was always a GREAT judge of character) and he never took the time to get to know her- so when they got engaged, he said “I don’t want 4 cats at my house, just bring those two” (not surprisingly, Jack wasn’t on his “list”). She asked me if I would keep her until she could find a home for Jack. I said “I will be keeping her, and good luck ever having kids with this douche” (okay, I didn’t say the last part, but I was thinking it).

Jack clung to me all the time. We were like two peas in a pod. We were very in tune with each other. Sue moved in with me way back when and we got Sullivan since Jack had always been around other cats. I didn’t want her to be alone. (As it turns out, she would have been completely fine being the only cat). She was an alpha female and asserted her dominance with us daily ha. We were her family and she really was okay without another cat, but we got Sullivan, and of course, were so glad we did. Jack and Sully were the BEST road cats anyone could have ever asked for. They took countless trips to and from Los Angeles to the Bay Area for holidays, etc. Neither of them minded. They barely made a sound in the car. Sometimes we’d let Jack out of her carrier and she would watch from our arms out the window at the world flying by. She seemed to really enjoy it.

When I started watching my nephew on the weekends as a baby, I was a little worried about how she might be around him. She was always tough and no nonsense with us if we tried to do anything to her, so how would she be around this baby? As it turns out, she was very motherly. She never even hissed at him, and they would both take turns following each other around the house. She was so patient with both of my nephews when they were little. Once they got older and did something she didn’t like, she’d hiss at them or swat, but she never did when they were small. Whenever I put them down for a nap, she would sleep next to them.

Jack would always come over to me whenever I cried. She would be very alarmed. She would walk around me. She would meow. She would climb into my lap and push her face into my face until I stopped. Maybe she just hated the noise, but I’d like to think she cared very much about me, as I did her.

Jack disliked the vet and hated any kind of medicine being administered etc (part of the reason why as she became older and had medical issues, I took the least invasive stance in her treatment). After years of vet visits and screaming like a feral cat any time they’d do anything to her, she accomplished a goal few cats achieve: as she lay on her side on the table, our long time vet was examining her, and Jack peed in her face. If Jack could talk, I’m sure that would have been a proud bragging point.

She didn’t like many others beyond my sister and I. In her later years she became more accepting of a precious few more people: she always loved our aunt, and a couple of our were able to visit her, pet her, give her meds and take care of her on the rare occasion we were out of town. When we went up to the Bay Area last Christmas, and our mom was in the hospital, it’s like she immediately knew what was going on because she would normally hiss at my dad and from that day on, she never did. In fact, as he has come down to visit us over the last year, she would walk over and curl up in his lap! She wasn’t soft though. She’d still cut you or bite you if you did something she didn’t like. I have the scars to prove it. Kind of glad I have them now…

In her later years, I would take her outside and she would walk around our courtyard, sniffing plants and flowers and making all the indoor cats jealous. She was aging and arthritic. The walking was good for her, and she couldn’t run off. The older she got, nothing scared her: Noises, earthquakes… she was fine. Once when we were outside, a neighbor came out unexpectedly with their dog (on a leash). The dog went nuts running toward Jack. The neighbor held the leash hard and I thought I’d scoop her up to “rescue” her… but she glanced at the dog, did not flinch, and went back to sniffing things.

Whenever I was away, I would FaceTime my sister or friend and talk to Jack. It was important for me to see her and talk to her, especially if I was gone for a week or two. Whenever I packed, she knew a suitcase meant I was leaving. She would always sit on or in it as I packed around her.

As her health became more compromised, Sue and I spent a lot of time at home with her, taking care of her in shifts. She passed away this last Saturday evening, on the couch between the two of us as we pet her and spoke to her and told her how much we loved her.

What I have written doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what an amazing, loving, bright little being she was. Nothing I could write would do her justice. She was my best friend.