Yoda was one of a kind.

Not the famed ‘Yoda’ of the Star Wars empire, Yoda my cat. To be fair, I am a Star Wars fan and way back when Yoda arrived in my life, he was a tiny kitten with a head too big for his body and ears way too big for his head. In short, he looked a lot like Yoda; there was no other name that would suit him.

In recent years, Yoda was one of our live-in cats at the office. The saying that cats have nine lives seemed to prove true for him. When he was a home-based cat, he one time wandered off a bit too far and got himself into quite a tussle somewhere along the line. He was a little wounded but healed well and didn’t venture out like that again.

One sunny May afternoon several years ago, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time just laying in the sun and was injured when a car backed over his hind quarters. Again, he somehow made it through that, his broken pelvis healed and though he had a slight limp afterward, it didn’t slow him down.

Not only was Yoda a cat with big ears, he was a Siamese with beautiful blue eyes – cross-eyed, however – and had no tail. His purr could be heard for miles around and he had quite a distinctive yowl-meow.

As he was recuperating from the car incident, I just brought him into the office and he made this his new home. Pumpkin, another cat from the home front, joined him so the two of them had each other to hang out with on nights and weekends when the office wasn’t full of humans.

Never a shy one, Yoda was quite fond of jumping up on desks to see whether he needed any of your coffee or whatever you might be eating for lunch. He also had the uncanny knack of settling in and spreading out for a nap on top of the stack of papers you needed for the project you were working on. He did not really respect personal space but when you looked at that sweet little cross-eyed face, it didn’t matter.

Over the last few months, we all noticed his health had started to decline, little by little, but he still maintained quite a presence in and around the office. However, we had to make modifications.

Such as closing office doors when we went home for the night because too many times we came in to find he had tipped over the garbage cans to see if there was anything in them he might need to nibble on.

We even put the big kitchen garbage can up out of his reach to help him avoid temptation.

It became a little harder for him to fully digest his crunchy food so my co-worker Michelle cooked up a brand-new menu of soft and easy-to-digest items that he absolutely loved.

But it was clear Yoda was losing his energy, he was having trouble staying on his feet, and on a recent Monday, it just seemed like it was close. We didn’t want him to hurt himself trying to walk so we got one of the comfy pet beds and put it in our cat carrier. He snuggled in and ate a little bit from a small bowl we offered. He purred and enjoyed the attention from all of his office mates as we all let him know it was okay to let go.

Monday nights I am in the office pretty late; the cat carrier was on a chair in my office so I could keep an eye on him and he got plenty of love and attention; even Pumpkin and my dog Bella would not leave my office, they stayed to share Yoda’s final moments with him. He was content; he knew he was loved and he crossed that Rainbow Bridge peacefully after a long, full and blessed life, leaving a lasting impact on our hearts.

Marg Jackson is editor of The Oakdale Leader, The Escalon Times and The Riverbank News. She may be reached at mjackson@oakdaleleader.com or by calling 209-847-3021.