La Precious

Adopted March 1974 in Tulsa – died 12 May 1993 in Tulsa

Had it not been for Bobby Richard Monforte, my husband from 1970-77, I may have never been acquainted with cats. Dogs were my passion ever since I saw one beyond my binky, but from cats I kept a cautious distance. It was also Bob who first asked me the existential question, “What’s the difference between a dog, a cat, a deer, a snake, a person ... all are alive the same.”  I knew he was right, but that philosophy demanded big changes.

After a ruinous but enlightening one-year stint in Costa del Sol real estate sales, in 1973 Bob and I returned to the USA to live in Tulsa near his family, in case we needed a meal. Soon Bob joined the insurance business. Visiting a client one evening, he noticed that the resident she-toddler was hitting a white kitten on the head persistently.  The cat cringed but didn’t flee as if resigned to that treatment. The parent remained impervious to the warning signs of later delinquency in her daughter. Incensed, but using restraint, Bob asked if the cat was the family pet and if they actually wanted to keep her. The woman couldn’t care less, and so Bob left with a sold home insurance policy and a six-month old cat.

Bob and I have divergent versions of the cat’s arrival to 5961 21^st Place, our clapboard house in a bluecollar neighborhood with its inherent problems. He says he brought the kitten directly home, and all hell broke loose.

Actually, because we had two dogs and a small budget, Bob took the kitten to a neighbor’s home where three sisters ages 14, 7, and 5, gleefully took her promising love and good care. Upon hearing about it I ran there to check the situation and the unfortunate cat was wandering tired and confused amidst the bushes. As I suspected, the girls’ mother, a hussy who would lock her own daughters outside in all weather when her male visitors came, resolutely did the same to the cat.

Before that instant, the one feline I recall ever holding was ill-fated Funiculi (Blog bio 15 JUN 12), and so with trepidation I scooped this one in my arms, returned home where Bob was waiting at the door, and handed her to him for introductions. Then’s when all hell broke loose.

Majo the Airedale (Blog bio 8 OCT 11) was a menace to all small animals, including crawling infants. Like a Shrike missile Majo aimed for the cat who then flew from Bob’s arms to the nearest window wedging herself between the glass pane and the screen from where there was no retreat. Xuska (Blog bio 2 JUL 12) joined the brawl just for sport.

Amids screams, barks, and yowls somehow we coordinated a rescue operation whereby I would lock the dogs in a room and Bob would remove the screen and grab the cat.  It’s all a blur but it worked.

A system of apartheid was established. “Cabatcat” had the run of the house when the dogs were outside, and was restricted to the guest room – with windows and the cat amenities — when they were in. For extended periods of togetherness, Majo was on the leash – the length of which Cabat intuited with mathematical precision to slink by without being killed.

La Precious, a strictly indoor cat, 

on a rare outing with Bruja 

(Blog bio 10 JUN 12) in 1975

 It was a stressful situation that didn’t improve significantly until 8 June 1974. On that memorable day, 10 tornadoes hit Green Country causing death and destruction. As two F-3 tornadoes approached Tulsa simultaneously, sirens blasting, torrential rain beating against the roof, and Bob outdoors taking in Armageddon, I –a veteran of many such scares in Kansas – took cover in the bathtub with the cat and dog Xuska under a heavy blanket. We waited with pounding hearts. I had left Majo’s fate in the hands of Bob, but unlike ex-navy pilots, dogs have a keen sense of self -preservation and of barometic pressure drops, which is why Majo sought my protection and clambered into the tub.  My fear of the approaching tornadoes shifted to the impending cat-dog fight. Once inside the tub, however, neither the cat not the dogs seemed aware of each other. Paralyzed with fear I just rearranged the blanket and hoped for the best.

The runaway train noise of approaching tornadoes and the din of roofs being blown off and debris hitting everywhere kept the dogs, the cat, and me frozen in place.  When it was over, we emerged from the tub with the understanding that reluctant coexistence was possible after all. Bob entered the house wet and exultant from defying, yet again, severe weather as he had the odds in Vietnam and Cambodia.   

The name “Cabatcat” didn’t take, however. Certain sounds like sh, s, ee ... that attract felines were missing, but she seemed to perk up whenever we remarked how “pre-shee-ussss” she was.

Gloria and La Precious
together to the end

Through the years, Precious shared the house with dogs and cats and even a Flying Squirrel (Blog bio 13 MAY 12), but there was no tighter bond than that of “La Precious” and my mother.  The rest of us, human or not, were just bit players as far as they were concerned.

Precious was Gloria’s steadfast companion during the two months she lay in her death bed in 1989. The cat fasted and wouldn’t relief herself unless carried to the litter box, food, and water; that done she dashed back to her vigil. Hospice nurses had to work around the cat.  She was on the pillow when Gloria exhaled her last breath and wouldn't leave even after the body was removed.

Frankly, I didn’t think of the cat in the commotion ensuing a death in the house. At one point, Ina Conover a dear friend, grabbed my arm and led me to where my mother had lain. Precious was on the bare mattress and Ina said: “Precious is crying.” Two tears were rolling down her white face – we saw it, other friends came to the room and saw it, and it was not –as feline experts will tell you, for health reasons. She didn’t cry while the body was there, and she stopped crying that evening, when we started paying attention to her. Weeks of mourning followed during which she barely ate, but we recovered.

Precious died in the same bed she had so zealously guarded. I was by her side – as she was by my mother’s – telling her the story of our life together until she died in the little hours. 

She was the first of 22 cats I did and do call mine, and not a few others that I have fostered, rescued, or helped somehow. I would have missed all that without Bob selling that insurance policy.