Penny.

Today my teenage angst, follows me to my cat's eighteenth birthday. 

Penny came to us as a three month old kitten on the (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend of my sixth year. Though we had had cats before, Penny was the first that I was old enough to know as my pet. That weekend, I was pleased as pie that she was coming to stay. She got her fill of loving from Beth and I over the weekend and cried her little kitten head off when we went back to school on Tuesday. She grew and had her own kittens; all of which we gave terrible names. Then she got in a fight with some dogs and they broke her leg. That's when she became sensitive. She didn't like her grand kittens and she didn't like me. I have scar on my cheekbone and another under my right eyebrow from claw bearing swipes she's taken at my face. 

She did like my dad though. He was her favorite and he still is. She follows him around the house, she depends on him for feeding. She knows that if she accidentally goes to the bathroom in the house that he'll be there to clean up after her. She is the one that prevented my parents from ever truly experiencing empty nest syndrome. 

She's lived with us in four different houses and we expect this will be her last. We've been preparing for her passing for years but then comes another August and here she still is. In January, I took her to the vet for an old age check up (really just to find out how quickly she was dying. She isn't, apparently.) and since then she's taken an odd liking to me. I appreciate this late in life friendship. 

Today, my teenage angst finds me on my cat's eighteenth birthday. The length of our lives spent with this cat has caused us to create a non-existent, but none-the-less hilarious personality for her. Everything she does is noteworthy. And for all her old age maladies, she is indeed our family and worth more than a lot of other things in life. Strange as it may seem, I praise the Lord for her.