This is for all of the lovely people who have been so supportive of me the last couple of days....I loved the story under 'strange occurances' and it reminded me that I have something....similiar to share. This is an excerpt from my journal, written about a month after Jet died:
1:00 a.m., July 3, 2006
Jet-Boy: The Most Exquisite, Cute and Perfect Cat.
I miss my cat. I miss my darling, black, diminutive kitty, my Jetty-Jet. I miss his enormous, round, yellow eyes, and his little old man cat-breath. I miss the little crook at the end of his tail and his insistent meow. I miss him curling up under my arm in bed at night and stretching out his paw till he touched the palm of my hand. I loved that little creature. He was my proverbial ‘favorite’ and I told him that all the time---‘don’t you worry’ I’d whisper in his ear ‘you are my favorite, you will always be my favorite’. I wonder if he knew? I wonder if he could feel just how much I adored him? There isn’t, nor will there ever be, a cat that has his same features, same habits, same personality traits as he had---or that I can feel as attached to. It isn’t possible. Jet was with me for 16 years and was the one constant in the tumultuous, emotional roller-coaster ride that is my life. He was a mischievous little stinker in his younger years and grew into the sweetest, gentlest (or ‘polite’ as John refers to him) affectionate and calming presence in this house. I love him all the way down to my toes and I hope his spirit is nearby and he knows how much he meant to me. He will live in my heart forever.
July 23, 2006
Did you know that if you find a cat whisker, that it will bring good luck? Nancy told me that once and since then, I’ve told John and my Mom and a few other people who I know to be cat-lovers. Occasionally when John or I would run across one of the cats’ whiskers and we’d ‘save’ it somewhere: on top of the dresser, on the end of the coffee table, on the ledge next to the sink, but eventually it would be brushed aside, dusted away, vacuumed up and forgotten…
Since Jet has died I have been obsessed with finding one of his whiskers. I have harbored this awful guilt and sorrow over not having been with him when he was put to sleep; of not having arranged for him to be euthanized at home like we did with Arliss. It’s left me feeling like I’d let him down in some way or that I didn’t quite close our relationship properly. I wasn’t even home when John buried him; I had to pick Mom up from the airport so we didn’t have a funeral or any kind of ceremony like we did with Arliss and Lucy. And that has bothered me.
Yesterday while cleaning house and purging old papers, magazines and books, I caught myself obsessively turning over cushions where I knew Jet tended to hang out, eyeing the carpeting very closely as I vacuumed and just generally digging around in dusty corners and crevasses hoping to stumble across one of his beloved whiskers. Finally, in exasperation I sat down on the yellow chaise lounge cushion (one I had just moments earlier flipped and scrutinized), and just sat quietly for a moment….thinking about him…..and I found myself saying a little prayer of sorts, something like “Jet, if you are out there, if your energy exists in some form or another and you can know that I’m thinking of you, then please, please let me find one of your whiskers someday. I’m going to stop looking now because I’m making myself nuts, so I’m giving this up to you and I’ll just patiently wait knowing that someday, when I least expect it, I will stumble across one of your precious whiskers.”
I went downstairs, emptied the garbage, trudged wearily back upstairs with the empty can, shuffled around a few more items and reached over the chaise lounge for my glass of water---and there it was. Right in the middle of the yellow cushion exactly where I had been sitting not 5 minutes earlier while praying to Jet to send me a whisker! My heart exploded with joy and my eyes welled up in tears….but my logical brain was immediately triggered and I began to rationalize the whole thing: it could be one of Elliot’s whiskers, Elliot is a dark-grey cat and Jet was black, so it could just be one of Elliot’s. Well it certainly isn’t Otis’s whisker since he is a tan tabby with snow-white whiskers. So what if it is Jet’s; maybe I just happened to sit down earlier today and pick up one of his whiskers on the seat of my pants and it transferred over to the yellow cushion when I sat on it. His whiskers and cat hair are all over the house, there must be a logical explanation. I went downstairs and picked up Elliot and held his dark grey face next to my black pants. White. Elliot’s whiskers are a very light-grey or white, even! I realize then that it doesn’t matter to me how his whisker landed there, it doesn’t matter because I know that it is Jet’s.
I am blown away. Absolutely speechless and in awe of what has just happened to me. I hold the little whisker in my hand and marvel at the mysterious and loving power of the universe; I am awash in gratitude.
I have a small end table downstairs with a glass top. The top sits on a 1-inch ledge that surrounds the table leaving room beneath for an assortment of trinkets and treasures and memorabilia that I have collected over the years. Jet’s whisker is now in there. It’s lovingly tucked in next to Lucy’s feather, my great-great grandma’s pocket watch, my gold baby locket, and some tiny dried finch eggs that I salvaged out of the finch cage many years ago. It seems right that it should inhabit that space; it belongs with so many other things ‘of my heart’.
Now I can’t help but wonder: if I can just ‘release’ my desires for other things in my life, will the universe deliver in the same way? I really wonder……
7/26/06
An excerpt of an email from Nancy: ......Cats, even (i really believe) walk through many worlds. I think they inhabit many levels of reality while residing in our homes. The whisker, IS jets. I don't question it at all. Not for a single second. what a gift. how great. How fantastic. right on the chair. sweet little special smart beast. I love this story!