The Story of Twinkie

  In the fall of 2005, we were in a new house in Apex, NC, and one of our two cats, Granite, decided to disappear, even though we had been in the house for several months and he seemed to have settled in. He had even gone outside a few times to explore. So when it was obvious that he wasn't coming back, we went to the SPCA to look at kittens.
  The remaining cat, Onyx, wasn't enthused about the two interlopers we brought home, Bandit and Twinkie. All three cats were female, and it soon became apparent that they despised each other. They quickly established a pecking order: Bandit, Onyx, Twinkie.
  Twinkie was the most pitiful cat we've even owned. Timid, she would find a soft place to hide and just camp out there for weeks at a time, emerging only to eat and use the litter box. She was always congested and the vet couldn't figure out why. I suspect she was allergic to people. She dealt with her lowest status by eating. She grew to be huge, like a fluffy couch cushion with eyes. She was so huge that she couldn't clean all of herself properly so she often needed a bath. She would tolerate the scrubbing as only a shy cat could. Even her meows were soft, like she had permanent kitty laryngitis. Like I said, she was pitiful.
  As she got older, her congestion grew worse. She snored loudly, and it wasn't clear to any of us when she became sick because she had always sounded wheezy. On Friday morning of a big ice storm last week, I found Twinkie in the girls' bathtub. She liked to climb into bathtubs and showers to lick up the puddles--she was always thirsty, it seemed. Perhaps she had kitty diabetes. Anyhow, she had been unable to climb out of the empty tub. I called the vet, but they were closed due to the ice.
  On Tuesday when it looked like we would be able to drive safely, Twinkie seemed to be feeling better. She slept a lot but would eat, drink, and make a pilgrimage to the litter box at least once a day. Maybe it was just a cold. On Friday she refused water and I finally took her to the vet.
  Pneumonia, an infection in her ear, dehydration, and a heart and lungs that were shutting down. She was half her original weight. She had always been so quiet that I didn't realize how sick she had become. Faced with the prospect of hospitalizing her at great expense from which she still might not recover and euthanizing her, I opted for one of the most painful decisions I've ever made.
  Twinkie glanced back at me with those trusting eyes as the vet carried her out of the room. I used up a box of tissues until she brought Twinkie back twenty minutes later, bundled up in a piece of cloth like a package. She was still warm but the wheezing had stopped.
  Today the family will bury the package named Twinkie in the woods. Why do we adopt animals when they have such short lifespans and always break out hearts? I think it's because they love unconditionally and expect so little from us. I have many funny stories of timid Twinkie, but today I can't think of a single one. Suffice it to say that she will be missed.