An American Cat Tail

This post is dedicated to cat person LB and his own two feline guardians, Oubaas and Vlooi.

I adore all animals - some from a respectful distance - but when it comes to dogs and cats, I am firmly and unabashedly in the canine camp.

However, more than a decade ago, there was a moggie that marched its way into my heart with great chivalry. At the time, I was living in the United States and working as a live-in Au Pair for a family with three adorable girls. The parents were unhappily married though, so whenever they were home, the atmosphere in the house became almost unbearably thick with tension. Even when they were not audibly fighting with each other, the very air was coiled tight with the unspoken resentment between them – almost like the heavy humidity that chokes the air before a violent thunderstorm during summer.

At night, when I wasn’t required to babysit, I jumped into the nanny car and escaped for a few blissful hours. The house was one of about six identical McMansions that were grouped together in a small development in suburban D.C. The family I lived with had no pets – the mother hated animals. Having grown up with dogs around, I severely missed an animal presence in my life. Alas, my only “fix” was the black and white cat I sometimes glimpsed walking around outside the house across the way.

One night, not long after I began working and living there, I returned from one of my nightly excursions. I parked the car in its designated spot next to the house and, when I opened the door, that same black and white cat was right there, at the car door. “Oh, hey!” With some surprise, I greeted it and reached out to touch it, only to have it jump away. “Okay, okay,” I said and let it be. It didn’t run away though. Instead, it patiently waited for me to lock the car doors and when I walked around to the front door, it walked alongside me, every step of the way.

When I got to the front door, I kind of expected it to try and sneak into the house with me, but it didn’t. It merely waited for me to unlock the door, let myself in, and then I watched it through the window as it bounded straight back home.

This became a nightly occurrence, no matter whether it rained, snowed, sleeted, or was too hot to move. Every night, as soon as I parked at home, the cat would be there, poised to fulfill its obligation. On nights when I tallied too long, it jumped onto the hood of the car and impatiently pawed the windshield until I got out, before proceeding to walk me to the front door. It never allowed me to touch it; it never tried getting into the house with me. It simply walked me up to the front door (up some steps), and waited for me to get safely inside, before turning around and walking straight back to its own family’s house across the way.

No one believed me until my mom and my then-boyfriend witnessed it with their own eyes when they dropped me back home. The fact that I came home with others, in different cars, didn’t deter the cat. Nor was it thrown for a loop by the fact that I was sometimes dropped off in different places around the house. As long as I was in the car, my little feline bodyguard was there, waiting to walk me to the door… It was flabbergasting.

This went on for the entire year I stayed there. It became a highlight of my day/night during a time that I was deeply depressed. I never learned the cat’s name, but I believe that it sensed how incredibly unhappy I was, which is why it took it upon itself to become my furry little guardian.

Needless to say, this self-proclaimed dog person was utterly charmed. I’ll never forget what that kitty did for me, way back then. With the simple act of walking me to the front door, it ushered me through a very bleak time in my life.