Mostly we came for the cats. Apparently a captain friend of Hemingway’s (another lover of the sea and fishing) gave him a six-toed cat. Now, his home boasts around forty felines, many of which are polydactyls like their ancestor. We counted 29 and Danny crawled around on his knees taking pictures of the multi-toed variety. Yes, we learned more about the famed author but his cats stole the day for sure.

The Florida Keys were a destination I’d anticipated for months just due to their reputation. Sometimes reputations are overstated but not in this instance. We have never been to the Caribbean so I admit our experience with clear, blue water is limited but in all seriousness, we could not stop exclaiming over the magic of these islands and their coastline. We stood in the ocean and could easily see our toes and the marine life stirring around us. For people who spend most of their beach time in Texas, I don’t think we’ll ever get over it.

We ate key lime pie dipped in dark chocolate. On a stick. It was on a stick! You know how sometimes you want to save something extraordinary for a “once in a while” treat so it doesn’t lose its special status? This isn’t like that at all. I want chocolate-dipped key lime pie every, single day for the rest of my life and as I’m dying, I want my grandchildren to spoon feed it to me.

We gloried in the sunsets. We found a hidden cove quite by accident and while the waves swallowed up a giant, orange fireball, locals sat around us sipping wine and catching up on gossip. Our kids scoured the ground for the smallest, most delicate shells I’ve ever seen and we lounged on a blanket absorbing it all before heading back to that restaurant for more pie.

We were completely mystified by the sand. I wish I’d thought to take little sand samples of all these beaches because God made all of them differently and when you’re seeing them in quick succession like we are, it’s obvious and incredible. They might only be separated by a mile or two but the sand is unique and the shells are different each time.

Back to Ernest. His house is surrounded by a stone wall and lush greenery. Nearly all the rooms draw visitors back outside to the balcony or the pool or quiet, brick-lined pathways. He wrote six hours a day without fail and spent his afternoons and evenings fishing and reading and drinking, of course. Maybe he was also on the lookout for his next wife–he had four of them. We stood in his writing hideaway, a room above the carriage house which he was able to access directly from his bedroom by a catwalk. We couldn’t touch anything but the room touched me. As an English major, how many of this man’s poems and short stories and novels have I read? I don’t even know. Standing in that room I was back in class reading “The Old Man and the Sea” for the first time. I was weeping over “A Farewell To Arms.” I was on Mt. Kilimanjaro with a dying man on safari or in Paris in love for the first time. The man could write.

Maybe I enjoyed him so much because I could actually understand his prose right off instead of plowing through it with a dictionary by my side. I’d forgotten how he died. Isn’t that horrible? I couldn’t remember that a man considered to be the greatest American author ever… killed himself in Idaho in 1961. The sadness of it washed over me and I mourned him again. Now, knowing more about his history (his father also died at his own hand) and his numerous health issues (and treatments–he underwent electric shock), I get it but oh, the tragedy of it. The loss.

We did not feel the loss while at his home. We felt the beauty, humor, sass and confidence of Ernest Hemingway. We meandered through each room with its old wood and tile and the slowly moving fans and the floor-to-ceiling windows (complete with hurricane-battling plantation shutters). We admired his typewriters and library. His bravery stands tall in his ambulance driving and war reporting and African safaris. His love of fishing, good food, hard drink and close friendship is palpable in that house. In Key West, Hemingway lives on in those crazy cats and the sparkling pool and the hidden writing studio. I’m going to keep him there and forget Idaho.