Jaymes, My Gift from God

Sometimes, something comes into your life and if you're lucky, you'll recognize it for what it is, a gift!
Jaymes, is my gift. He came to me over 16 years ago. His mother was a stray that my son took in. Shortly after finding her we found out she was expecting. My three children and I watched her belly grow. Felt the babies moving in her womb when we held her. What I thought would be a great experience for my children turned into a very tramatic event. To make a long story short, Jaymes' mother died while giving birth! We had three little kittens with no mother. The vet I went to at the time told me their survival chances were slim but we could try nursing them ourselves. My children were just out of school for the summer so we decided to give it our all. One of the kids wrote out an around the clock feeding and cleaning schedule where we were all assigned time slots. The babies were kept in a small box in our bathroom. This was a very warm room. We bought formula, baby bottles, and cotton balls. I'll explain the cotton balls later. We all took our turn with the babies. The very first day, one of the babes died. Now we had two left and we were determined not to lose them. The vet told us after feeding the babes we had to stimulate them as their mother would or they would not urinate or defecate. That is why the mothers are always licking their babies! Well, we didn't want to lick them, thus the cotton balls! We dipped them in warm water and rubbed their bellies. Days went by and they continued to do well.
We began having a problem in stimulating them. In came my husband! For some reason he could make them do what we couldn't, so he became the official poop man!
The kittens began to grow. Their eyes opened and they began to move around in their box. I named them Bartles and Jaymes. Yes, that was a favorite of mine at the time!
They grew and began following me wherever I went. It got to the point, if I thought of them whether I was inside or out, they would show up! I recognized right then the gift we were given!
One Halloween, Bartles disappeared and I was devastated. He was no where to be found. When we finally had our first snow, I sat alone at 3AM in the morning and realized I would not be seeing Bartles ever again. Jaymes, crawled on my lap and I do believe he mourned right with me.

Jaymes is now over 16 years old and the LOVE of my life. I know the time is coming when he will leave me and I'm dreading it. He is ill and we suspect a brain tumor but without expensive tests we really don't know.
In summers past, I have sat in my meditation garden and always he joined me there. Tail up in greeting and eyes looking into mine. I'm not so sure about this summer and I miss him already but if he has taught me anything it's that if you think of someone with love............they appear....In your mind and your heart, you just have to look.