Pearly Girl

It was May 1994; 7 months since I moved back "home" from being married. I had moved in with my grandfather and was missing my dog that I had to leave with my ex. My sister, who had a cat, said "get a cat." It's less maintenance. Pop won't mind...in fact, he liked cats. My mom went with me to the Monmouth County SPCA and I was walking down the first aisle of cages, and a head popped out from a plethora of furballs...and I saw this chin. And this nose. Staring right at me. My mom said to keep looking, but no....I needed to see this one. And she was a girl and I wanted a girl kitty. She crawled all over me-up my arm, my neck and down the other arm. I was hooked! I brought her to the vet, they said she was in good shape and then home. It took a few days to name her. Pop wanted to name her "Blackie", but for reasons I will not repeat, I said to keep thinking. He then said she had a line of white fur along her neck like a string of pearls....so there she was named: Pearl.

Pain in the ass, cute as can be, verbal to the nth degree, escapee, mouse catcher (2 field mice in 2 days...another story for another day)...the Pearly Girl. Then came along Minnie (Minnie...Pearl...get it?) It was only 3 years ago that Oliver came along. But, Pearl was my favorite-she was also Pop's. He taught her about outside, pasta, sharing ice cream and the cellar.

Pop's been gone going on 3 years; Pearl's moved with me back to Pop's house (which I now own) and she runs the show. Meowing on cue in the phone, especially when she's hungry, dealing with Oliver when he was a kitten. Getting older, becoming the barfy cat...especially on my work chair...ugh!

Well, I'm now dealing with my 13-1/2 year old Pearl coming to the end of her road. The vet said she's got a tumor and that it will just be a matter of time. She's been sneezing and having a runny nose of late, but she is still eating like a little pig and meowing at me as much as ever, although not able to jump up onto things...She still has that awesome nose and chin-the picture above was taken yesterday-even at 4 lb, 6 oz., she is still my Pearly Girl-my solace is that I know Pop will have company soon and he can walk her outside and let her run around all she wants, and they can both share as much ice cream as they want. Here's Pearl in 2002: