hello, there: hello there, 9 lives...

For seven hours my cat was dead today.

Or so we thought.

My one year old, Jax, went out to play at 8 this morning as normal. Abnormally though, did not come home for an afternoon nap/beg mom for dinner early. In fact, I called and called him and he didn't come home. It was hot today, not too hot, but hot enough for it to be odd that he wouldn't have come home at some point to cool down in the air conditioning and get some water. Then 5 o'clock came, the cats dinner time, and still no Jax. Now I was worried. If there was one thing that could be counted on it was that Jax was always around for meals. But 5 o'clock also meant it was time for me to leave for work so I called John and told him the whole thing and he said he would look for him as soon as he got home.

Here's where I go from worried to life-crushing-devastation.

About 45 minutes later I get a text from John at work with "can you talk?". I immediately knew something was wrong. John said that he went driving around looking for him and found a dead cat that looked like him right outside our neighborhood but wasn't completely sure if it was him.

It gets a little gross here.

Since he wasn't sure if it was Jax or not I made (he really didn't want to) him go back and take a picture and send it to me. 5 minutes later, after viewing the picture, I knew it was him. Fortunately my manager happened to be sitting right there when all of this happened and immediately asked if I needed to go home. "Yes"

On my way home I called my mom and cried. I called John and cried. And I cried alone, big loud sobbing tears. Jax was special. He had brought John and I closer during a hard time. He was my sole comfort and friend when we had first moved here. He was Sundae's big brother and playmate. And now, just like that, he was gone.

When I got home John had retrieved what was left of him, and had already dug a hole for him to be buried in. (He even ran to the store to get a shovel because we didn't have one.) I looked at the body one more time, to try and confirm it was him, it was so badly damaged it was hard, but I told myself it was. John put his favorite toy, an old chewed up ribbon, in the hole covered him up and said a prayer. We said a few words and then went for a walk to find a rock to mark the spot with. We choose a large, smooth, dark gray stone and laid it on his resting place.

We went inside and John held me while I laid on the bed and cried. Sundae curled up in the corner of the room and just laid there. Not her norm, it was as if she knew. I told him I wanted to be alone and ended up crying myself to sleep.

And then...

At midnight, John comes in the room and in an almost panicked voice says, "Ali! Ali wake up! Jax is alive! I was sitting at the computer and heard a cry at the door. At first I thought I was hearing things just because I wanted him to be there, but then it came again and when I got up and looked there he was waiting at the door to come in.!"

What.

I jumped out of bed and sure enough there he was drinking a gallon of water and begging to be fed.

We were so happy we said a prayer of thanks and then celebrated with milkshakes.

Jax, I don't know what you were doing for 18 hours but we are glad to have you back. And, you're grounded.