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Before I had Baby J, I was one of those people who thought that having a pet was actually comparable to having a child.

It took about five seconds home from the hospital for me to realize that, actually, it's really not.

For one thing, you can leave your cat home alone for the weekend with some extra food and water. If you leave your baby home alone with an extra bottle on the floor, a fun game might be to count the minutes it takes before you get hauled off to jail.

Ah, the innocence of youth. Somehow, though, I have always had pets, including an ill-advised series of years in and after college when I actually had turtles (ew). But I was mostly partial to animal companions of the more furry variety. One such pet was my sixteenth birthday present.

She was a cat. Her name (since we never actually use it) is Charlotte. My family calls her "Nitty," which is, flatteringly, short for "the nitwit kitty."

Charlotte is gray and white with green eyes. She is hugely obese. She does not like to move. She is too large to reach certain delicate parts of herself. These parts could usually stand to be cleaned. Her sole joys in life, up till recently, were eating and sleeping (if you can call her vapid trances true sleep).

When I was in college, she hid in the closet in my parents' basement. "Well, that makes sense," said my mother, "she can look out and keep an eye on things."

That would make sense, sure.

But Charlotte always faced the wall.

A few years ago, Charlotte seemed to be getting sick, so my parents took her to the vet. The upshot of what happened was that my parents had to take her to some place called "Radio Cat." (I'm not even exaggerating.) While she was there, they "radiated" her, rendering her unfit for human socialization for two weeks. During her two weeks of deradiation, she lived in the garage and hid under the car. Inexplicably, she seemed relatively happy.

But, alas, the happiness was only fleeting.

$600 worth of tests later, the vet informed my parents that Charlotte was perfectly healthy, but had become depressed. She continued to avoid hygiene (not that cleanliness was even physically possible anymore). She slept in a circular cat bed, which she soiled with regularity in an attempt to avoid having to walk to her litter box. Once, my father saw her actually drag herself to her food so she could eat without having to stand up.

The vet prescribed her Prozac. That perked her up some. At times, you might even mistake her for being something resembling a cat. She endured a move from San Francisco to Oregon, and set up camp in my parents' laundry room.

Tonight, though, my parents told me that Charlotte has stopped eating. Her kidneys are failing. The vet says she probably has just weeks to live. She has lost a lot of weight and can no longer be considered obese.

According to my mother, she just sits in the cat bed, purring her secret thoughts aloud to herself.

I don't know how to feel about her diagnosis.

On one hand: it's sad. The imminent passing of a childhood pet always is.

On the other hand: will she really notice? Is staring at the wall for hours on end really a life?

My mother says she was "an unsuccessful cat." I think that might be the best way to think about her.

This afternoon, my own, acquired-during-my-adulthood cat, Orange, sat down near Baby J on the carpet and looked at him. Baby J smiled brilliantly at Orange and rocked up and down. This seemed to please Orange and he wandered off to find something else to do while Baby J watched in fascination.

If I were on a television talk show (my aspirations have always been so grand) I would say to Charlotte, "find a reason to live!" But I don't actually think she wants one.

Also: my mother said their cleaning lady whispered to her confidentially that she had "laid hands on Charlotte in prayer." My father is furious at the prospect that she might prove the vet wrong and live.

From what I know of her, Charlotte might be, too.