I was sitting in my backyard one day, when a black kitten came strolling into the yard. He couldn’t have been more than a couple of months old. Being the cat lover that I am, I called to him. Shy and leary, he did come nearer, but still kept his distance. My son informed me that he was probably a stray, from down the street. Still, I ran inside and brought out some food for him. I watched while he ate, hungrily, and then left. For the next week or so, he kept coming back… and I kept feeding him. I don’t know how, but I seem to have a knack for turning a scared, wild cat into a rolling, purring bundle of joy. And that was my secret mission. I had to keep it a secret, because I already had five cats! My son knew, though, and didn’t say a word… being a cat lover himself.

After a few weeks passed, the little black kitty, now named Jasper, allowed me to touch him and pet him, but not too much. Eventually, he came into my house. And wouldn’t leave. As Jasper grew older, he put on more weight and muscle. And ironically, his build became exactly like a panther’s. I would watch him stalking birds out in the yard, in awe. His walk was identical. The slouch of his back was identical. His facial features were identical. And thus, he became my ‘panther.’

Jasper wasn’t very much into independence, though he did love to hunt. Most of the time, though, he was right beside me. Walked beside me, slept beside me, sat beside me. He was my protector. He had a sense of inner strength about him, but at the same time, a loving gentleness that I loved. I knew that he was ‘my’ cat, because he wouldn’t allow others to really get that close to him. He still had a tiny bit of the wild left in him, and he showed it. With me, though, he was extremely loving, always wanting attention. People would try to pick him up and he would run. When I picked him up, he would rub his face on mine and purr like a motor. He always put his arms around my neck, just like a child. His front paws were huge.

Whenever I went outside, Jasper was never behind me, but always beside me. For some reason, I felt safer with him there. We had a connection that surpassed any I’d ever had with an animal. When I looked into his eyes, he was looking back at me, just as deeply. It was eerie sometimes, because I felt as if he were looking into my soul. Panther eyes, he definitely had.

I learned a lot from Jasper. I saw in myself my lack of trust, my yearning for Love. It may have been because of his physical stance & build, but Jasper carried around him a sense of power and strength. I tuned into that. My own personal power and strength. When I began to truly feel these things within myself, I began to change. Like Jasper, I was still leary of letting others close to me, but I began to learn to set up my boundaries. Good boundaries, that is. I had always been a ‘yes’ person, a people-pleaser, a door mat. That began to disappear as I felt into my inner strength. I noticed that the stronger I felt on the inside, the more it showed on the outside… and Jasper was doing the same thing! The stronger my energy became, the stronger his became. It was almost as if we had become One.

I ended up getting a tattoo on my upper arm, of a panther, because I had become so in tune with Panther’s energy. But it also reminded me of Jasper, which was pretty cool.

When I need to strengthen my will, I tune into Panther’s energy during a meditation, or just a few quite moments alone, and I not only see my Panther guide, I see Jasper. When I later moved, I took Jasper with me. He ended up going back to our old home a few times, with me hunting him down and bringing him back each time. Then I ended up moving back into our original home after my divorce. One night, around 2am, I woke up with a start. I was drawn to the window. It had lightly snowed, and the whiteness of the snow had lit up the neighborhood. I looked down the street a little bit, and there stood Jasper, looking right at me. How did he know I was looking through the curtain, in the middle of the night, at that exact moment? I ran to the front door and called to him. He just stood there, in the middle of the street, and looked at me. Then he slowly began to walk down the street, away from our house. I never saw Jasper again after that.

Losing Jasper hurt. A lot. I felt like I’d lost a part of myself. I missed him terribly, because I was so used to him always being by my side. But, time passed, and I began to get over it. I was grateful and appreciative of him being in my life, and the lessons he had brought with him. I knew that he was still alive, though, and that he was near, but I also felt that I wasn’t supposed to keep looking for him.

Last February, when my boyfriend moved into a new house, it just happened to be in my old neighborhood (I had since moved again). One day, as my bf and I were sitting outside on the deck, my son came speeding up on his bicycle, obviously very excited about something. “Mom!” he yelled. “Jasper is here! He lives in that house! Right there on the corner!” He begged me to go look, insisting that it was indeed Jasper. “We can get him back, Mom!” he said. “No,” I said. “We can’t. That’s his new home now, leave him be.” I didn’t want to go see Jasper. I didn’t want to be reminded of how much I’d missed him. But mostly, I was afraid that he would remember me and leave his new home. He’d found his new home for a reason, and I was sure that he was being well taken care of. I catch my son, sometimes, riding his bike over there, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jasper. He’s admitted to petting him, but doing nothing more. Jasper came into our lives for a reason, and when he had accomplished his mission, he went onto his next one. I’m very content with that. :)