BURIAL SITE #1

Jake Wayne: 1987 - 2006.  Jake Wayne died of liver cancer on a cold gray November day at the age of nineteen. He found me when he was a very tiny kitten in Phoenix Arizona. Someone dumped him in the parking lot of the complex I was living in. I found out he had been scrounging for food for three days when I went door to door to find his momma. He was drenched in motor oil (he must have been hiding in engines or fixing them, he didn't say). I named him Jake. A good, solid mechanic's name. I took him home, gave him a bath and set him in front of a huge dish of food. He was ravenous. He slept in front of that food bowl for days, making sure it didn't go anywhere. As he grew up, he developed a swagger like John Wayne. Head down, ears back, magnificent whiskers and handsome. He was just plain cool. Hence the name  "Jake Wayne". In his eighteenth year he started talking to his water dish. A deep soulful meow from the back of his throat that echoed through the house. At 6 o'clock in the evening or 3:00 a.m., it didn't matter, we always knew when Jake was getting a drink. In August of this year, we made a trip to Animal Blessings Pet Hospital for some blood work, as Jake seemed to be in some distress. Finding out he was low on potassium, we began a daily regimen of a pill every night before bed. 2 1/2 months later, Doctor Zirbel found that he had developed diabetes, and his liver was riddled with cancer and full of holes. The ultrasound picture looked like swiss cheese. Literally. The two diseases manifested themselves virtually overnight. With the rapid progression of the cancer, his prognosis was grim. So to spare Jake the pain and suffering that was coming....he went to the Rainbow Bridge in my arms, purring, my face buried in his back. We laid him to rest in our little pet cemetery in the backyard next to Mr. Samperstein and Tuna...God bless Jake Wayne. He was my boy. ~Karyn Moltzen