…if you were to include his housemates over the years, his name would read "Jackson Tornow-Motzel-Peperak-Kardos-Rardin-Korona-Chapman-Kozicki-Devine-Hylden-Hofmeister"!
Born: 1991
Died: November 25, 2008 at approximately 12pm
Jackson was a hearty fatcat of a fellow who lived a good long life spanning two centuries. He was adopted as a kitten by housemates Kathi Tornow and Rob Motzel in Detroit , Michigan, and then turned over to the care of Rob’s later housemates Dianna Kardos and Lisa Rardin, after Rob married a lovely lady whose allergies wouldn’t tolerate Jack’s beautiful tiger-striped coat.
His claim-to-fame was his weight: nearly twenty pounds! At one house party during those twenty-something years, someone nicknamed him “The Ottoman” due to his resemblance to that piece of furniture when he was in a prone position. During another house party he was found having a romantic relationship with an exotic stuffed kitty in Lisa’s bedroom.
He did his best to do the mousing in the house, although Lisa had a way of making that quite challenging for him. Mostly, he could be found sprawled out on the floor on his back in the middle of any given room, spread-eagle and utterly content, but ready with quick eyes to pounce on a piece of string or wiggling toe that happened by.
His strength was legendary. Rob likes to tell the story of a large whole chicken he left de-thawing in the kitchen sink one day. Upon returning from an errand, Rob found the bird lying on the floor, with its plastic wrapping torn and its meat ravaged. It remains a mystery to us all just how Jackson managed to pull his weight in chicken up out of the sink and off the counter!
He formed feline friendships with many other wonderful humans in Michigan , including other housemates Jennie Korona, Rebecca Chapman, and Ken Kozicki.
In 1998 Jackson accompanied Lisa and her brother Tim on a cross-country driving odyssey, and became a resident of Colorado in July of that year. He was Lisa’s constant companion and during this time he also befriended other humans, including housemates Paul Devine & Mikkel Hylden. After Lisa married John Hofmeister in 2002, this growing family added to its ranks a dog, then another dog, and then a child, and then another child. Being a cat and naturally the least needy of the lot, Jackson endured these “demotions” in status without complaint.
In his final years he had gone deaf, and as a result his voice grew quite loud – presumably because he was unable to hear himself speak. He preferred to spend most of his time in the basement where it was warm and cozy. Despite his decline, he still enjoyed performing his famous “flippy” move – a gentle somersault over Lisa’s outstretched foot.
He was in Lisa’s arms in his basement home when he peacefully ascended to the Heavyside Layer just a few days before Thanksgiving. He spent his last few days enjoying lavish attention and head scratches, tuna fish dinners, and all the catnip he could stand.
Goodbye, sweet boy. You will be dearly missed.
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We told Anne Peyton the news the next day, after Lisa could compose her Pisces-weepy self a little better. It was pretty much a non-event for a 3 1/2 year old, despite the fact that she had grown quite attached to the old boy recently. But the next day on the way to the airport (to grandmother's house we went for Thanksgiving), she composed a little song and sang it for us in the car. I can't nearly do it justice because it was sung in the sweetest, tiniest little voice, but it went like this:
alllllll cats die....when they get old
alllllll cats die....when they get old
alllllll cats die....when they get old
alllllll cats die....when they get old
Immediately thereafter she offered to sing another song for us. It began "allll elephants...". She quickly interrupted herself and assured us that although it SOUNDED like it would be the same song, it wasn't. She then proceeded with:
allll elephants like...to splash water on their backs
and so on
