For most of my life, my cats came to me the same way – strays that either found me or I found them. I called it fate and rarely questioned the logic of it. The minute I brought them into my house, they became part of my heart and home. That changed in 1998 when I happened upon a new TV channel called “Animal Planet” and they were doing an hour long show about a breed of cat that I had never heard of before, the Ragdoll.
I instantly fell head over heels in love while watching these puffy balls of furs on the TV screen with their sweet, playful, and docile personality and decided on the spot that I must have one of my own and realized the chances of a stray coming to my door were slim, even for me, and so I hatched the not so difficult plot of convincing my boys that it would make the perfect Mother’s Day gift for me, which was coincidentally only a few weeks away. I also knew in order for this gift to actually come to fruition, that I would have to be the one to find the kitten, make arrangements to pick it up, and pay for it… details, details.
So, not one who has much patience when it comes to getting what I want, I had to cross my fingers that someone would actually have Ragdoll kittens available and I quickly scoured the classified section under pets, because believe it or not, back then the Internet was not a part of my life. How ironic that now it is the newspaper that is not a part of my life… Anyhow, luckily for me, someone did have kittens and a short two hour drive later, there I was picking out and reserving my furry little gift from a litter of six. Because he was born on 4/17/1998, he was still not old enough to leave his mother at this point, so I had to wait about a month to actually pick him up and bring him to his new furever home, which ended up being July 2, 1988, his official “Gotcha Day.”
Now, 15 years later, I am blessed to be saying Happy Birthday to that special kitty that you all know as my beloved Jazz. Jazz is winding down in his journey with me, so everyday I have with him is cause for celebration. He has become a very distinguished and elderly mancat, hence the respectful title that we now call him, Mr. Jazz, and he is such a good boy. While his mind and body has slowed down and is showing the signs of age, he remains a loyal, loving, and devoted cat whose greatest joy is to snuggle on my chest when I watch TV at night as he purrs and hugs me with his now shrinking bear paws. He and I have been through quite a lot together and there is not a day that he does not tell me how much he loves and adores me.
The feeling is mutual buddy – I love you so much and am so grateful to be wishing you a Happy Birthday.
Much love from all of us – Human Dad, Zee, Zoey, Mia, Peanut, Rolz, Harley, and Kizmet
- See more at: http://zeezoey.com/blog/today-is-a-very-special-day-happy-15th-birthday-to-mr-jazz/#sthash.Z1naCnqN.dpuf
Comments