The most bittersweet of summers

Summer is usually my absolute favorite season. It's a short three months here, so I relish the balmy temps and soft breezes. I always looked forward to that first day I could open the windows and leave them open. So did my kitty Jake. She was mine for twenty years and then June 4 of this year, right at the beginning of summer she passed away. Oh, how she loved to sit in the windows and sniff the air and glare with disdain at the birds and squirrels. All it took was for me to say "Jakie, window?" and she'd be right there even before I had it open.
The Saturday before she passed I helped her into an open window. She could barely see, but her sense of smell worked fine. She sniffed the damp rain soaked evening air and seemed to be in kitty bliss. Her happiness meant the world to me. I still like summer, but I can never open a window with the same joyful expectation; not without my Jakie.