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May 21, 2006
Bye, bye Jazzy
Jazzy jumped up on to her new favorite perch last night -- a hutch that gives her a full view of the computer room -- then fell with a thud and started panting. By the time we arrived at the emergency vet, her heart had stopped beating.
She was a large framed cat, and the veterinarian said that big cats sometimes have heart problems that go undetected. Without a necropsy, we'll never know for sure. But that's probably what killed her -- an invisible flaw in her heart that let her live a full, happy, active life until she died.
Jazzy started out very small when Ben adopted her as a three-week-old kitten seven years ago.
By the time I got to know her, she was a very lean, very tall, very long cat.
She was mischievous, and sometimes quite bad. She was also beautiful and often very sweet.
She liked to hide in cupboards, munch on my hair and Ben's, sit on laps -- especially Ben's, and especially while he was at the computer. She also liked to eat plastic bags, which made her very sick one time. She loved shredding toilet paper, and she loved chasing toys around the house until she deemed them dead, then leaving them in her water dish. She liked to eat dental floss. After we saw a string of floss trailing out of Jazzy's wrong end, Ben and I started flushing it rather than tossing it in the trash for her to dig up.
She was adopted from the Humane Society on Columbia Boulevard, not far from where we live now. Jazzy was the name that the shelter gave her. Ben met her, she played with his finger through the bars in his cage. He went home that day, thought about it, then decided to adopt her.
Mister came into Jazzy's life in the spring of 2003, when Ben and I moved in together. They lived as siblings for three years, although it took them a while to grow accustomed to each other.
They fought viciously at first, then playfully. They liked to sleep on the bed next to each other. They liked to sniff each other's butts and chase each other around the house.
Now Mister is an only cat.
We'll be getting a card with Jazzy's paw prints as a final memento of her life. I put a few photos of her online, but we have dozens more at home.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at May 21, 2006 11:47 AM
Comments
My condolences...
Posted by: Rian at May 21, 2006 06:14 PM
There were a couple of years there before I met Courtney from around mid-1999 to late 2001 that seem very surreal now when most of my days I was either working or spending time alone with Jazzy and Jason. Jazzy passed away one year to the day after Jason did.
http://www.courtneysherwood.com/journal/archives/2005/05/jason_taylor.html
Posted by: Ben at May 21, 2006 08:45 PM
so sorry to hear about this! my sympathies to you, ben and mister.
Posted by: laura at May 21, 2006 11:15 PM
That's neat about the paw prints. That would've been nice to have last year when Cuddles died. It seems she resembled Jazzy as well (except Cuddles was a bit of a runt).
Cuddles was afraid of small children ever since the Sherwood family house sat on one of their visits "back to the states" while our family went sailing for some extended time. I believe it was Darcy and Austin that thought it would be fun to lock her in a hamper. Your mom found her crying a few hours later. I think she may have flown down the stairs once or twice too. I would hope your brothers matured past that stage by the time Beta and Amoeba came around! ;-)
Posted by: Kathy at May 22, 2006 09:30 PM
Those two pictures on the original post really show how she grew into her ears over time. She was the funniest looking little thing as a kitten.
Posted by: Ben at May 23, 2006 10:38 AM
I just saw this post...I'm so sorry to hear about Jazzy! I'm glad I had a chance to meet her (and I'm sure she enjoyed scaring the daylights out of me by playing "hide and pounce" in the guest room)...I hope the three of you are doing OK...
Posted by: Anonymous at May 25, 2006 05:20 AM