The Story of Jabez, the Cat

Jabez was born March 20, 2000.  He was brought to the Helen Woodward Animal Shelter in San Diego, California.  On May 20, 2000, I went to the animal shelter to adopt a cat, preferably a kitten.  When I first saw Jabez he was sleeping peacefully in the arms of a stranger, a young handsome man whom had been pulled toward him in his quest for a cat for his girlfriend.  She was insistent on getting a Persian cat, but Jabez, then called Samba, by the staff at the animal shelter had settled into her boyfriend's arms while he waited for his girlfriend to choose one of the several Persian kittens that she was looking at.  As I walked through the door I saw Jabez in this guy's arms and said a little prayer to God that I really wanted that cat.  For me, it was like if I didn't get him I would not walk out of there with any other cat.  The girl friend made her decision and one of the staff took Jabez out of the guy's arms and put him back into the cage with the other kittens.  Jabez went to the food bowl to eat, and another kitten took a swipe at him and got its claw stuck in to the skin of one of Jabez's ears.  Instead of Jabez fighting back he just crouched down and meowed, while waiting for the worker to rescue  him and put him in my arms.  He cuddled into my arms and I was enamored for life.  I was certain he was a four or five month old kitten but was told his day of birth and the story of what she knew about how he came to the shelter.  It seems Jabez was the product of a tabby mix cat and some unknown wild cat that had gotten her pregnant.  The staff named him "Samba", but I named him Jabez.

My daughter was still living at home when I first brought Jabez home and she knew that I was going to get a new cat that day.  When she came home after school, or work, she asked me, "Well, did you get it?"  She didn't see Jabez at my feet.  So, I bent down and picked him up and said, "Jennifer, meet Jabez."  To which Jabez replied with a big "MEOW."  Jennifer was astonished at how beautiful and cute he was.  I think she even commented on the size of his paws.  It became like a game to see which one of us he would come to first.  One time she came home and he was sleeping peacefully next to me as I talked to an old friend on the phone.  As soon as she saw him, she quietly called him to come to her, and he got up and came right to her with me scowling at her for making him move.  It was all in good spirits though, we both loved him so much.

That first night he came to my bedside and meowed and I put my hand down to grab him to pull him into bed with me but he leaped with such power and grace that I said, out loud, "Wow!"  For a two month old kitten he was remarkable in his prowess.  My bed is pretty high off the ground and for a kitten that age to jump that height was uncommon.

I took him to the local vet and she told me that based on this teeth he was just two months old but was going to be a very big cat.  And how big did Jabez get?  He grew to eighteen inches tall, with ears that were two inches long and a tail that was twelve inches long.  At one point, he weighed over thirty pounds but I put him on a diet after finding out that he was diabetic.  He had Type I Diabetes and required twice daily shots of insulin which I administered to him until the day he died.  I even purchased a Glucometer to test his blood sugar.  He was a high maintenance kitty but he earned his keep in sweetness of spirit and companionship to me.

In a time of recovery from the death of my husband, Jabez was a comfort to my soul and a source of great pride.  He was a beautiful feline and gentle spirit.  When he was a kitten he would play a game with me when I would come home from a long day at work.  After I shut the door behind me, he would jump onto one of the dining room chairs and hide until I played what I called the "boo game."  I would play peek-a-boo with him and he would bat my face with soft paws when I would peek around the back of the chair.  This became a routine for us until I moved out of that apartment.  I lived there for five years and Jabez was four when I moved out.  I came to call him Boo in that apartment and while I had registered him as "Jabez", he knew that "Boo" also meant himself.

He wasn't very happy about the first move either.  Part of it, I'm sure, was due to the fact that my living room had been left in relative upheaval.  A couch was left standing on its side when found it wasn't going to fit into the tiny one bedroom apartment I had moved into.  Jabez kept vigil by sleeping atop the upended couch making sure he could see me sleeping in my bed.  As soon as I awoke the next morning he was all mews and meows vocalizing his discontent at the disorganization of his new home.  We settled in though and he finally got used to living in a smaller space than he was first brought into.  He also survived a move eighty miles northeast to my daughter's house.  He was in heaven in that house.  He had a big three bedroom house with a front and back yard to roam around in.  It was a struggle to keep him out of her kitchen cabinets and off her counters.  He was used to a full reign of his living quarters and like any other feline, he was curious. He became accustomed to moving but I could tell he really liked the condo I moved into in 2008.  It was as big as the first apartment I had when I first brought him home.

In that home he would regularly get on the desk when I was on the computer and basically want to sit on the keyboard in front of me.  As if to say, "Hey, you should be paying attention to me not that silly screen."  He would try to bat at the mouse on the screen but eventually learned that it was not something he could actually touch and I'm sure he never understood why he couldn't catch that little pointer.  So, in our new home I purchased in 2008, I was working at the computer and he jumped up and laid across the desk like the way he did in his first apartment and I knew he felt at home.

One thing he was good about was the litter box.  I didn't have to worry about this guy squirting around the home, he always used the litter box.  While he had numerous incidents around his litter box at the end he was still a cat you could depend on to not just go piss in a corner somewhere, or in your laundry basket.  It was only toward the end of his days that I had to start cleaning up messes outside of the litter box and that was usually vomit and never urine.  He was really sick by then.  His diabetes was still a prominent issue and he had acquired cataracts, heart disease and gall stones.

I bought him a big dog bed to sleep on and it took him a while to get used to it but the very first time I saw him sleeping on it I took a picture because he looked so sweet:

The last year or two of his life, if I didn't see him on one of the couches or laying next to me, I usually found him on his bed fast asleep:

I nursed him back to health on a number of occasions but the heart disease, cataracts and gall stones  were not something that would go away without some serious medical intervention.  I spent over one thousand dollars one time when I overdosed him on his insulin.  After that incident, I bought the Glucometer and monitored his blood sugar before giving him his insulin.  If I would be late on giving him his shot, he would come and sit by me (I was usually on the computer) and meow up at me, as if to say, hey, you forgot something.  Then I would remember, uh-oh, I forgot to give you your shot and he would lead me to the kitchen where he would wait patiently in front of the refrigerator until I administered his shot.  Then he would go back to one of his many spots he chose to chill out in or wait by the front door for me to let him out.

He didn't have to meow at me to let him out, although on occasion he would, but I always made sure I knew where he was.   If I saw he was sitting by the door,  he would turn and look and me and I would then go open the door for him to go outside.  He never stayed out long.  And would wait patiently at the door until I saw him or if I was busy in the office, he would meow, as if to say "let me in!" In the early days of our residence in the condo, he would be gone for an hour or so and I figured he was out patrolling the complex and getting his bearings.  Toward the end, he stopped "asking" to go out and instead he would lie on the back of one of the couches and look out the window.

So, while I miss him dearly, I know that his suffering has ended and if our pets really go to heaven, I will see him again.   He is in a better place now.  I will never forget the special bond we had as owner and cat.  He will always be remembered as "my boo" because even though I named him Jabez, everyone in the family called him Boo too.   There will never be another cat like Jabez.  He would often roll onto his back and chill out for a while.  A sure sign he was content.

You may wonder where I got his name.  In the Bible, 1 Corinthians 4:9-10, states:

Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name
Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.” And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying,
“Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your
hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause
pain!” So God granted him what he requested.
 
I kept running into sermons and women's meetings where the story of Jabez was recounted as a lesson on prayer, contentment, and/or obedience during the period of time from 1998 until after 2000. When people would ask where I got the name Jabez from, I took delight in being able to tell them I got the name from the Bible.  So, he was kind of like a ministry tool.  However, no one could pronounce his name right.  I pronounced his name like JAY-Bez, but people had all kinds of ways they would pronounce it.

To me, Jabez was a gift from God to assuage my hurting heart in the aftermath of the loss of my husband, Alfredo, and my impending empty-nest era.  He was always waiting for me when I came home and soon established himself as the king of the roost, which he basically ruled until he died on December 8, 2012.

I will never forget him and will always miss him.  He was my constant companion at my home.

I got a couple of sympathy cards from the vet and the hospital and the following poem was included in one of the cards.