Catwoman wasn’t much a conversationalist.
She intensely watched a rerun of Wheel of Fortune and tried to guess the puzzle. “Mr. Winkles, what do you think it is?”
Mr. Winkles, a striped tabby, simply meowed.
“I don’t think it is ‘meow.’ There are too many letters.”
It was Thanksgiving and Catwoman was hanging out with her cats. To her, it was just another day. No turkey. No gravy. No casseroles. Really not much to be thankful for except for her feline friends. She would find them something easy to fix for lunch. “How’d you like some Tuna?” The mere mention of the word drew a feline crowd.
Dorothy “Catwoman” Thompson was thankful for her kitty companions. Her three children lived far away and were estranged from her. Her neighbors (who had given her the nasty nickname of Catwoman) weren’t exactly friendly. So she just lived alone with her cats and a few photos of her husband. “He was so handsome in his uniform,” she told Mr. Winkles. But he had been shot down and died in a bombing mission over Vietnam in 1965, leaving her to raise their three children by herself. She had never gotten remarried. “Who needs people anyway?” she told Reagan. “Cats are the perfect company.” She had tried to convince herself of that for over 30 years now.
But she was lonely. It was Thanksgiving after all. And once she got past listing Mr. Winkles, Sam, Buttercup, Lady Bird, Gus, Francis, Freddy, Susie, Reagan and Kitty she really didn’t have much to be thankful for. She looked at the phone, knowing it would not ring today.
She flipped the channel and found the Macy’s Day Parade. Her kids had loved watching it and particularly liked the Snoopy ballon. She did, too, if the truth were told. Mainly because it reminded her of them. She really missed her children and wished they didn’t blame her for all the troubles in the world. Didn’t they know she had done the very best she could? The three jobs she had worked to put them through school didn’t mean anything to them? She slowly got up and limped into the kitchen with a cat parade right behind her. “Chow time.” At least the cats appreciated her.
She opened up the cupboard. It was bare other than cat food. She pulled out ten cans of tuna and scraped them on a plate. A white and brown cat jumped up on the counter. “Get down Buttercup and wait your turn.” She bent over, fed ten very grateful kitties and sighed.
Sadness had shaved eight of nine lives off Catwoman’s life.
She shuffled back into the living room and sat back down in her green recliner. Al Roker was excitedly introducing some singer she had never heard of. Maybe a nap would help her forget she was hungry and lonely.
And then there was a knock on the door.
“Surely it’s next door,” she to Mr. Winkles, “Who would knock on my door?” She turned up the TV to drown out the noise. No sense of being reminded of other people’s joy.
A second knock was even louder.
“Who is it?”
No answer.
She got up and shuffled over to the door to look through the peephole. What she saw brought her to her knees.
“We brought you lunch, Mom.”
Outside where her three kids, their spouses and their children. Each held a dish.
That afternoon, thirteen people and ten cats had the finest Thanksgiving lunch ever. It plain and simply Catwoman’s most thankful Thanksgiving ever. She burped a full burp, looked at her family and smiled. Catwoman and her ten cats were never lonely again.
