“You’re the greatest cat in the world.” Those were the last words that Jack, a tabby cat, ever heard. On Sunday, Feb. 18, around 6:15 p.m., Pat Lombardi, a cat sitter, was doing her final rounds, fulfilling her duties of feeding and loving Jack and his feline companion, Tessa.
“For some reason, I picked Jack up and told him that right as I was leaving,” Lombardi recalled last week, her voice quavering. “Jack was such a lover boy.”
Forty-five minutes later, Lombardi happened to be driving by the same address at 300 Washington St., only to see that the building was on fire.
“I looked up and screamed, ‘Oh no!’” Lombardi said last week. She pulled over and jumped out of her car, but the police held her back.
The two cats, Jack and Tessa, lost their lives in what became a very challenging four-alarm fire, a fire many Hobokenites watched burn that Sunday night and the next morning. No other lives were lost, but the building has had to be slowly demolished over the last month.
The owners of the cats, Bethany and Kevin Rose, raced home the night of the fire after being away for the weekend. They stayed outside their building until 4 a.m., watching the blaze make its way through the building until flames were shooting out of the top floor. Lombardi remained there until 1 a.m. But the opportunity to save the beloved cats never arose.
The cats had huddled together under the bed, just like Bethany expected.
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Animal fund
The day after the fire, Lombardi and Bethany cried together on the phone.
“What devastated me even more,” Bethany said last week, “was knowing the cats, their bodies, were still there in the apartment.”
Lombardi offered to take on the grim task of retrieving the bodies. Escorted by a firefighter, she entered the apartment after the fire was out, taking along a box she had gotten the day before. The remains were under the bed, as the cats had huddled together, just like Bethany thought they would. They died of smoke inhalation.
Bethany and Kevin were heartbroken over the loss but touched many acts of kindness from Lombardi and other Hobokenites, they said. They decided to honor the memory of Jack and Tessa with a fund that will benefit the Liberty Humane Society, which runs an animal shelter in Jersey City and is contracted to provide animal sheltering services to Jersey City and Hoboken, as well as animal control/rescue services to Hoboken, Jersey City and Union City. The LHS takes in more than 5,000 animals per year.
The Tessa and Jack Memorial Fund at Liberty Humane Society will be utilized to develop infrastructure improvements to Liberty Humane’s cat housing. After a successful kennel fundraising campaign performed last year, Liberty Humane is still in need of housing upgrades for the thousands of homeless cats who come through the door every year.
“Proper housing is one of the leading factors in decreasing stress and medical complications in the shelter,” said Irene Borngraeber, director of development and operations for LHS, last week. “We are deeply touched that the Roses have chosen to honor Tessa and Jack’s memory through such a lasting gift to Liberty Humane. Their generosity in the midst of personal tragedy speaks to the strength and endurance of the human-animal bond.”
A special page has been set up in Tessa and Jack’s honor on the Liberty Humane Society website at www.libertyhumane.org/donate.php, which can be accessed to donate to the memorial fund.
To find out more about the LHS or to adopt a pet from the Jersey City shelter, call them at (201) 547-4147.