We saw her a few times when we visited the house. I suspected she was a barn cat living on the property. So when we moved in and found the previous owners had left a bin of cat food with a note on top, I was not too surprised. The note said “Please feed the cat. Her name is Penelope.”
This was such a curious coincidence that it felt a bit magical, our youngest child also being called Penelope. Right away the kitty became “Penelope the Cat” to distinguish her from “Penelope the Human.” As we already had two indoor cats, she continued to live outside for some time, so as to avoid upsetting the delicate balance of cat power politics.
Eventually I did bring her inside. She looked pretty pathetic one night, so I brought her in and began the process of turning this mostly feral creature into a pet. Alexandra once observed “It's like you found a muttering old woman in rags out in the woods and brought her in.” She was not a very friendly cat. The vet we first took her to informed us she was somewhere between 7 and 15, which for a cat is like saying “between old and ancient.”
For a while she caused no trouble but eventually she did, being of course a cat. She started howling in the middle of the night. I tried so many things. Extra food, an automatic feeder, a second litter box, whatever I could think of. I didn't know it then, but she was probably already sick. As she became mostly deaf and her middle of the night yowling became more horrible, her name morphed to Screamer. When she became noticeably skinny, the kids renamed her Skeletor.
Finally I took Skelly to the vet and discovered she had hyperthyroid disease. Pearl was sick with kidney failure then, too, and I had moved her into my study as a sort of retirement suite. Skelly joined her as she became harder to care for. Pearl helped me work and joined meetings while Skeletor mostly slept.
The medication for Skelly helped for a while, until it didn't. I bought a baby scale to monitor her weight. It dropped gradually, but consistently.
Pearl died first, which was a shock. She was my cat, my favorite cat. The cat who used to tuck us all in every night and who we joked was the kids’ real mom. I would be lying if I said I didn't regret that she went before Skelly. Skelly was like a roommate where Pearl had been a best friend.
And Skelly missed Pearl, which was a surprise. In all the time they shared a space, they barely acknowledged each other. But now Skelly was restless, knocking things over, messing up my papers, and yowling pitifully whenever I opened the door. She started sitting in front of my computer screen when I worked, or curling up on my lap. Even at her frailest, she would dig her claws into my thigh and pull herself up onto my lap. My leg is covered with scratches from her needle like claws.
The end was slow for Skelly. Pearl had gone so quick. And she got to be at home, in familiar surroundings. I wanted that for Skelly, but it wasn't meant to be. When her weight dropped from six pounds to four and a half, I knew I had already waited too long.
We took her in on a Monday. The vet was very kind. Skelly explored the waiting room. Her mind was as sharp as ever. She did not want to go. But her body was betraying her.
As her heart stopped and I held her, I thought “time is our friend, and our enemy” and it worked like a mantra in my mind. I thought I should have taken better care of her. And then I was kind to myself, too, and firmly told myself that that was not true. Her life these past 7 years was far better than it would have been without me. Even if she annoyed me, I cared for her. I fed her, gave her medicine, cleaned up her messes. I laboriously groomed her coat when she couldn't clean herself anymore. I got her pain meds, and anxiety meds, and… I held her when she died.
Death is awful and there's just no way around it. It doesn't matter how many times you see it.
So, I fed the cat. And did all the other things that entailed. And in the final reckoning, I don't regret a thing.
7/9/2025
