Remembering Grendel today

Grendel was a stray cat that I first saw one night when she looked in at me through the screen door. and once she had three kittens in the garage, we adopted them all. Grendel was an outdoor cat and I slowly tried to turn her into an indoor only cat (like her babies) - for a while we compromised and she wore a little harness and I took her for walks around the yard on a leash :). There were some hard times with her - she got a herpes blister once on her eyeball (eek!) and my mom and I had to apply hot wet compresses to the eye twice a day for weeks while Grendel had to wear the dreaded elizabethan collar. She was very affectionate and the only one of the four cats who liked to be picked up, who liked to be groomed. When older she got feline hyperthyroidism and then later chronic renal failure and though we spent some time giving her medication and sub-Q fluids, eventually she passed away. Miss her still.