As a tiny kitten, Jackson showed up in the engine of my car one morning with his brother, Travis. His MamaCat (TacoMama) was in the edge of the woods looking for and calling for her boys. They were frightened when I opened the hood of the car and both headed into the woods in the opposite direction of TacoMama as fast as they could go. I finally managed to scoop them up and reunite the cat family. And that was the beginning of TacoMama, Jackson and Travis becoming members of the colony here.
Jackson was always having fun. He was always active and such a wrestler. He loved his brother very much and insisted on tightly cuddling with him every night. These two never outgrew their love for one another and where one was, so was the other.
We had some close calls with losing Jackson on more than one occasion. He once crawled into the spare tire under the truck for a nap and ended up taking a 25 mile ride to town on a raining afternoon. This is how he earned his name. We named him after the city we had driven to that afternoon; Jackson.
We were just lucky that when we arrived at our destination and headed across the parking lot to go in, we changed our mind about eating there and headed back to the car. As we were walking toward the car, little Jackson jumped out of the spare tire and became disoriented and terrified. Had I not called his name just in time to stop him in his tracks before wandering into an adjoining parking lot, we would have lost him forever.
Thankfully he recognized my voice and I was able to collect him up. Needless to say, we took him straight home where his brother was over joyed to have Jackson back. There was another time he had a close call, but I will leave that story for Travis’ bio.
Jackson and Travis were the best of buddies and were so in sync with one another that when they would run side by side they would take turns jumping over each other’s back. They would switch sides repeatedly while running and it almost seemed to be a dance for them. It was really a sight to see that sent my heart soaring at the beautiful sight.
Although Jackson and Travis were very close, there were times that Jackson would wander off into the woods and stay well beyond dinner time and night fall. Many nights I would sit in the yard with a flashlight calling for Jackson. We always feared that one day he would not come home. Even though he always showed up just before I was about to give up for the night he always instigated a game of catch me if you can for several minutes before throwing himself onto the ground and rolling over on his back to be captured. Then I would pick him up and put him in the shelter for the evening. It worried me very much when he would go off and stay gone so long like that because of the coyote and fox in the area. We soon learned it wasn’t the fox or coyote that would take him.
Unfortunately, one morning before his feeding and before we had a chance to let him out for the day, Jackson collapsed and died suddenly in his favorite corner of the kennel. My husband yelled for me to come and so I raced to the kennel as fast as I could and tried to save Jackson with cpr. There was nothing I could do. Jackson was young and seemed healthy. There were no warning signs or symptoms that Jackson had been sick.
It was with great regret that I lost my 4 year old Jackson, and especially regretful that I lost him so suddenly while he was still so young. His cremains wait here with me to be reunited with his TacoMama.