I think the first sentence I ever spoke was, ‘Mommy can I have a white kitty?’ We lived in an apartment so as always I was told "Honey we can't have pets where we live." So I waited and waited and waited so more! Eventually we moved into a house and I just knew for my twelfth birthday I was going to get a kitty!! As fate would have it my moms friend had just found a pure white stray cat!! She was meant to be mine!! I named her Jazzi. I couldn’t believe I had my very own cat to love, play with and sleep with every night. I guess you could say I was a momma's girl. My mom and Jazzi were my best friends. If I wasn't with my mom I was with Jazzi. About six months after I got Jazzi it came as a complete shock to me when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. It was thanksgiving time when she told me the news. I like my mother had such a positive outlook on her diagnosis. I thought to myself, of course she will live because Heavenly Father would not take away both my parents. My father died of diabetes when I was fourteen months old. I was so confident that she would survive that I was not scared at all. Perhaps I was in denial or just plain naive, but I knew she would beat it - she had to! As the days passed it appeared that I was right, the chemo was working and the Doctors said she would be home in time for Christmas. My world changed forever the day that school got out for Christmas break. When I got home from school my Aunt Kayla was there and she told me the unbelievable news. Late the night before my Mom had died. I was in shock! How could she be gone, she was just here? I ran straight to my bed room, closed the door, fell to the floor crying with Jazzi in my arms . How could this happen? How could Heavenly Father take both my parents? At that moment I felt a strong feeling that my mom was there with me. And some where through my unimaginable sadness I was overwhelmed with her presence. I could feel her there in my room with me. In that moment with my Mom all around me there came a promise. A promise from her that Jazzi would be here to comfort and love me till I got married. It was her last gift, a promise of a sort from my Mom, that she would be there for me through Jazzi. I clung to Jazzi; she was all I had left of my mother.
I don’t remember a lot of the days and months that followed. Except that I missed my Mother terribly and that I cried a lot. Every night it seemed I cried myself to sleep. I would fall asleep listening to the sound of Jazzi purring as she licked away my tears. As time went by Jazzi and I both grew up. She had kittens I went to Jr.high. In high school my Aunt Kayla who was raising me got married and we had to move from our home in Salt Lake City to Ogden Utah. It was my junior year. I didn't want to move but was given no choice. I went to a new school. I didn't know a single sole. I was alone. I would walk home by my self every day. As soon as I got to the front of the house I could see Jazzi sitting on the window sill, waiting for me. She was always there, my one friend I could count on. Sleeping with Jazzi, listening to her purr was the best. Something about made me feel as secure as I felt when my Mom was still alive and I would sleep with her. I Graduated from Ogden high in 1995. I thought about college but needed a break from school. (Truthfully, I didn’t want to leave Jazzi) A year passed until I decided I was ready to leave Jazzi and go to Dixie College in St. George Utah. It was only a 5 hour drive from where we lived so I could come home on weekends. I went to school and couldn't sleep without Jazzi purring. I missed her too much! I came home after three months. Yes I came home from college for my cat. As soon as I was home for good I knew I had made the right decision.
I went on with my life with Jazzi right beside me. People would ask how old she was and I would laugh and say it doesn’t matter, she will live forever!! My family said they hoped that when she died that I would be married because they didn't want to deal with me when she was gone. Every trial in my life Jazzi was there with me, from fighting with friends, breaking up with boyfriends to comforting me after a bad day. I think I moved with Jazzi at least 20 times! How she did it I will never know.
In 2004 my girlfriend DeEtte and I decided to go to Las Vegas for the weekend. I love Vegas and couldn't wait to get out of town. When we arrived in Vegas DeEtte broke the news to me that she had made plans for us to meet some guys she has been chatting with online. Wahoo can’t wait... NOT!! Anyways that is when Matt came into my life. We hit it off right away. He was easy going and we got along great. Matt lived in Lehi Utah, about 20 minutes from me. We started dating, kept dating and then dated some more. After about 2 years we started looking for rings but I guess I'm picky or so Matt says I am because I couldn't find one that I liked. I was excited to marry Matt and start a new life with him. I couldn’t help but notice that as I was making plans to make a new life Jazzi appeared to be coming to the end of hers. She seemed to loose her appetite and lost quite a bit of weight. I watched her so carefully and at times she seemed uncomfortable. In my heart I knew that my time left with her was running short. I knew that most likely after Matt and I were married she would die. It was my hope that she would just slip away in her sleep one night. Slip away without any pain and with out me having to be the one to end her life. Unfortunately life never goes quite as planned. Jazzi’s health quickly took a turn for the worse. Not only would she not eat very much but now she would hardly drink any water either. I took her to the vet, Lynette and all I learned was that she was dehydrated and had a small heart murmur. At home I would give her IV fluids to help with the dehydration. It seemed to help a bit but I think both Jazzi and I knew that our journey together was coming all too quickly to an end.
My hunt for the perfect engagement ring continued. At last one day in April I found it! I couldn't believe it, it was stunning! I just knew it was the one, it spoke to me!! Yes rings speak to us, just asks any girl. I took a picture of it and sent it to Matt. I was so excited! I hurried home to show my sister who I was living with at the time. When I arrived home my excitement quickly came to an end. Downstairs in my bedroom I found Jazzi sleeping soundly on my bed of blood stained sheets. Immediately I rushed her to the vet. Even as I explained to Lynette about the blood I had found, nothing could be found that would have caused it. Finely Lynette found a small mass, Jazzi was sedated and a small section was removed to do a biopsy. I wouldn’t get the results till the following day. My head was spinning! What if it was cancer? Could Jazzi handle chemo? She was twenty now, what could she survive? I took Jazzi home, crawled into bed with her and cried. Cried because I knew what was coming. Cried because I wasn’t ready to let her go. Cried because as I watched her it was obvious just how miserable she was. I slept with her close to me that night. I was so scared not knowing what was to come.
The next day the dreaded call came. Lynette informed me that Jazzi had cancer. I asked her how long I could expect her live. She said without treatment maybe a month or so. I froze. Only a month? That's it? I knew she was too old for treatment. I told Lynette jazzi wasn’t eating a lot. Lynette recommended yogurt. That night I tried to feed jazzi the yogurt but she just wouldn’t eat it. I looked at her and the light in her eyes was fading. I stayed with her all night. About every half an hour or so she would get up try to get comfortable and when she couldn’t she would cry. Watching her be in so much pain was unbearable. I prayed and prayed! I prayed that god would take her from me so I wouldn’t have to make the decision to end her life on my own. How could I end her life? I wanted to somehow save her from her pain just as she had so many countless times saved me from mine.
Morning came too soon…Jazzi was so sick and so miserable. I couldn’t take it any more and more than anything I knew Jazzi couldn’t either. Lynette was out for the day so I phoned another vet and made the unbelievable appointment to put my sweet cat to sleep. My Aunt Kayla offered to go with with me. I think we all knew I couldn’t do it alone.Holding Jazzi in my arms we walked into the vet clinic. Immediately we were rushed into a room. I think we were helped so quickly not necessarily because of Jazzi's health condition but because of my emotional condition. They asked me if I would like to be there when they put her to sleep. Of course I would be there. I wanted the last face she saw to be mine, the last eyes she looked into to be ones filled of an overabundance of love and gratitude for her. It was the last gift I could give to her; to be there for her as she took her last breaths at life. To comfort and love her as she had always comforted and loved me. I said my last goodbyes to her. I kissed her on the head as I had done a million times before, this time it seemed different, knowing that it would be the last. It was over so fast, so quiet. I held her as the drugs were administered and just like that, the light in her eyes was gone, she was gone. With my arms empty, tears streaming down my face I left the clinic without Jazzi. I cried the whole way home.
Home. That was one place I wasn't prepared for. Just as I had when I was twelve years old and had just lost my mother, I went straight to my bedroom, curled up in the sheets Jazzi had just slept in and cried. No cat to lick the tears way. No purring to lull me to sleep. It was just me. I wasn’t sure how I could function without her. At the time Matt was working out of town. He would call to check on me and I would lie to him - tell him that I was somehow surviving. Was I? I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t even get through a day with out crying. Nights without her were awful! I couldn’t sleep without her. Everything around me was a reminder of her, a reminder that she was no longer here. Upstairs there was an extra bedroom. The room was a pretty and it got a lot of sun light, unlike the bedroom jazzi and I had shared. I moved into the upstairs room. It wasn’t just a new room, it was the first step at a new life without my cat. I was living in a fog moving through the emotions and motions of life. I knew it would get better. I just kept looking forward to getting through one day without crying.
After many tears were cried, countless sleepless nights, and a few lost pounds, happiness found me. Matt and I got engaged! I was finally getting married! I was so excited to start my new life with him! Planning the wedding gave me something to focus on other than how much I missed Jazzi. Six months after Jazzi died I was married. I made sure there were little reminders of my Mom and Jazzi at my wedding. I took advantage of the technology of photo shop and had jazzi put in one of my bridal photos so it looked like she was there with me. In my bouquet were small daisy like white flowers. Daisies were my Mom’s favorite flowers and the petals were as white as Jazzis soft fur. I felt them both there on my wedding day, just as they have always been there for me.There are still days that I miss her. Still dreams that remind of how much I love and needed her. Still days that I am so sad that I don’t have her. But everyday I am so grateful that she was there with me when my Mom wasn’t. So grateful that she kept her promise and stayed with me till she knew that there wase someone else who loved me as much as she did, as much as my mom did. Forever is how long I will be grateful for my mother’s last gift.
