Heavy heart

I haven't had much chance to get to know many cats. Mom hated them, thought they were all sneaky. We briefly had a kitten anyway, when I was a kid, until my sister spoiled it by picking it up every time she walked past for the first couple weeks. Then she walked by without picking it up one day, and it scratched her, right under the eye. Goodbye, cat.

We had a couple of them here, shortly after our baby girl graduated high school. She and a friend got them from someone who had them on the side of the road, free to a good home. My wife doesn't hate cats so much as she fears them, so every time one of them jumped, so did she. Since they were kittens, that meant there was a whole lot of jumping going on. It only took about a week of that, after my daughter and her friend abandoned them to us, for us to decide they had to be donated while they were still young enough to be adopted. It was either that or hire a divorce lawyer.

I like cats, but I've never had the good fortune to live in a house of people who share my affinity.

So when I had the chance, Christmas before last, to cat-sit for some friends - whom I wanted to be better friends with anyway - it was definitely a two-birds-with-one-stone situation. I couldn't say yes fast enough! Every day I went over and spent about 20 minutes hanging out with Jackson. He seemed glad for the company, and condescended to allow me to pet him the whole time I was there, after feeding him and filling the bird feeders, of course.  He was quite friendly, and would purr loudly pretty much the entire time I was stroking his fur. My friends added upside to upside: they thought this was worth gifting me for, not realizing what a gift they were already giving me. I still use the guitar tuner I bought with their gift card, all the time.

I think I got to sit him one more time before he moved away with them, and of course got to see him whenever I was over at the house. We were even reunited once at his family's new place, when my company sent me to that area on a business trip early in the year. I'm probably being silly, but it seemed like he was happy to see me, too.

Now I'm not going to see him any more.

I'm going to miss you, Jackson. Not like your family will, I know, but still.