The P-r-r-r-fect Home: How Catty Are You?

Written on January 18, 2010 at 10:11 am
By Candace Ord Manroe

So I’ve been reading the TH blogs and slide shows written by my colleagues and realize just how dog-driven a culture we, the TH editors and readers, are. And I have to wonder: What about the cats?

I grew up a dog person, remain one today. Jack, 10-year-old golden retriever, and Nellie, ??-year-old rescued yellow lab, are proof. (As is my newly destroyed sofa, after Jack and Nellie were egged on, I suspect, by my handsome, adorable two-year-old grand-dog, golden doodle Danny, when I dog-sat over Christmas and was gone too long for his liking one day. Such fluff! Such madness! Who knew a single sofa cushion could hold so much
fill?)

But years ago, as a newlywed, I discovered myself hitched to a cat man. Because he was feline-friendly, we did not have a fenced yard for a dog, and I desperately wanted a pet, I followed an ad in the Dallas Morning News leading me to the mixed breed litter of a full-Persian momma cat.

The momma was gorgeous. Silver and regal. From this intimidating mom’s litter, I selected a little black kitten with what appeared to be a smattering of gold dust on her head, forked over the $25, and Duster Kitty became a part of my life. The only cat I have ever “owned” (cat lovers know some other word needs to be invented).

Mark, my husband at the time, was shocked when I returned with what he said was nothing but an alley cat—that there was nothing “half-Persian” about her. I cried a little (newlyweds are so sensitive), said I would go to the store and buy some kitty food and return the kitten to the seller the next day.

When I returned from Kroger’s, Duster Kitty was asleep on the couch, nestled high on Mark’s chest, curled like a tiny black scarf under his neck. I repeated my promise to return her the following day only to hear a transformed and totally smitten Mark say, “You’re not taking MY cat!”

Well, Duster stuck but Mark and I didn’t. When I left Texas and my stay-at-home freelance writing career 11 years later for a full-time job in Iowa at COUNTRY HOME, Duster Kitty and our two small children left with me.

My then-youngest son, Drew, was about to enter kindergarten. My daughter, Meg, fourth grade. I didn’t know a soul in Des Moines. Duster Kitty was my rock. My transition from past to present lives.

Every day when I got home from work that first summer, I would find her basking in the sunny window seat under my bedroom’s dormer, unperturbed, completely at home in our new digs. I’d fretted over how she would cope, moving to a residential neighborhood after living the last five of her 11 years on the fringes of the Texas Hill Country, where there was never a shortage of lizards, horny toads, and mockingbirds for her to hunt and proudly present to me nearly every day.

The message I picked up from Duster was: “We can do this. Everything’ll be okay.”

And it was. For the next 10 years, with Duster by my side. By the time she turned 21, I’d moved to yet another home in Des Moines, remarried, and had a third child. Duster Kitty was my constant through it all. Love is blind. Whenever my friend and neighbor Dale would visit during Duster’s golden years, he would take one look and shriek, “PET CEMETERY!” All I saw was my beloved and ever-beautiful Duster Kitty, not the sack of bones and thinning hair Dale apparently observed through more objective eyes.

The last day of Duster’s life she refused to eat. I made her favorite homemade spaghetti and meat sauce, but she was too weak to stand up. I knew it was time. I called the vet and my husband started the car to drive us there.

On the way, I broke down. I looked at my failing companion cradled in my lap (I think cats have more than nine lives—Duster and I had lived many more than that together), and asked of her one last favor: “Duster Kitty, please don’t make me do this to you,” I cried. Duster, so weak, lifted her little bird’s-skull of a head, looked up at me, uttered one last mew, and died in my arms.

I’m a dog person, but I’m a cat person, too—Duster Kitty’s. She made Iowa home for me. What makes your house a home—dogs, cats, a gerbil? Let me know.

3 Responses to “The P-r-r-r-fect Home: How Catty Are You?”

1. January 18, 2010 at 5:17 pm, by Todd Richesin

   Candace, OMG, I teared up reading this story. Cats are an integral part of my life in Tennessee. Bobby and I had two cats for 14 years, Baker and Lincoln. Lincoln became sick with a respiratory condition, and in the last weeks of his life, Baker developed a much more addressive form of the same disease. They were litter mates, and had never been seperated. They always wanted to be together. They died the same day. I know exactly how you saw Duster….the same beautiful cat he had always been. B&L were that way to us, even in their last days. Today, we have Jackson and Venice. They haven’t replaced Baker and Lincoln, but they have filled a lonely void in our home. As I type, they are curled up together in front of the fireplace in my office. A house can be a beautiful place on its own, but it takes images like that to make it home.

2. January 18, 2010 at 7:36 pm, by Candace Manroe

   Thanks for sharing, Todd. I had you pegged as an animal lover. But do have to say, your designs look pretty marvelous all by themselves.

3. January 28, 2010 at 9:50 am, by cathy whitlock

   I have had cats since I was a child and have pretty much let them run the “asylum” so to speak — ironic in that I am a designer and have dared to put tempting bullion fringe on much of the furnishings. That sad, if you have animals– just let them do their thing, the Brits have been incorporating this factor into their interiors for centuries.

   Loved your story and know how special pets are in our lives. I lose my beloved cat Binky over the summer — he became a cult favorite with friends all over the world as he starred in my annual Christmas card. I let him be my “mouthpiece” and he commented on everything from politics to shopping. Just sorry I never did a “Binky Chronicles” book!