Horrible Cat

God help me, I'm warming up to my mother's horrible cat.
   A few years after we had to bid our family dog a graceful exit my sister found my mother a new pet. A cute little gray furball kitty, who was born with a gimpy right front foot. Like Nemo but in cat form. His mother had her litter under a boxwood hedge, and they found the kittens once the braver ones started venturing out into the world. My sister had the best of intentions and imagined that the little kitty would be a good addition to a grandparents' household.
   She was right and she was wrong.
   My parents named the cat Smokey, because he was dark gray like smoke from a forest fire. And he was a little bastard. Halfway feral because he'd spent the first six weeks of his life under a bush, and kind of pissed off because he only had 3 1/2 feet, he was anything but cute and loving. He knew he was a cat, and more to the point, he knew you were not.
   My father let the little SOB bite him on the feet. He thought it was cute. It was not. All it did was give Smokey permission to be ornery and awful. You wouldn't think he could do too much damage seeing as how he lacked a right foot, but the little bastard drew blood all the time.
   Make no mistake, I hated that cat, and my sister did too. Her daughters learned that this particular pet animal was a 'no-touch kitty' and he learned that the very last thing you wanted to do was get between my sister and her children. Instant cat-skin cap, if you catch my meaning. For years he's been just one good scratch and bite away from finding a new home 100 miles away on some rancher's property.
   The past few days, though, I've been in my mother's house with this little SOB, and I don't hate him, not any longer. He's getting up there in cat years, and he's had the crap kicked out of him by other neighborhood cats more times than anyone can count, so he's kind of earned my grudging respect, if for nothing else then for lasting as long as he has. He's slower, obviously arthritic, more tentative when jumping up and going down, and less inclined to savage someone who's just trying to pet him.
   He has tried to get my attention with his version of a meow, which is so pathetic and weak and obviously non-practiced that it is cute, in a sorry, scarred, one-bad-foot sort of way. Every day I've been here I've taken leave of my senses and let him out when he squeaks and given him cat treats when he come in. And despite his moods and bites and irrationally vicious nature, my mother does seem to love him. You gotta respect that.
   So here's to you, Smokey, for lasting as long as you have when you've been at such a disadvantage in relation to other wildlife, and for ingratiating yourself to my parents even though you are - seriously - the worst pet animal I've ever known. Unlike the past... oh, entirety of your tenure on this planet... I wish you well, good luck and long life. L'chaim, skoal, here's to you kid, and every other applicable toast. You beat the odds.