CHESTER,
A KITTEN FOR MY HEART
Katie H. Wozny

It was one of those really dark, cold, moonless early November nights. I missed the house twice. She told me that she had a circle drive and as I neared the house I could see the cats, so I slowed because I didn’t want to hit one with the car.

She took me around back where the cats were and they swarmed her, this incredibly beautiful woman with her own intrinsic style that I admired right away. There were 16 cats in all, 4 kittens. We tried to catch a female but they were too quick so I settled on a beautiful, fluffy black male, with a blue-grey ruff, all hisses and spits until she wrapped a towel around him and talked to him, calming him almost instantly. She held him like an infant and cooed and talked love to him as she put him in the carrier. It was cold so I didn’t visit long although I wanted to but the cold made my head ache and I also wanted to get the kitten home. I had already named him Chester, a name stolen from my brother. He got the dog named Gertrude so he wasn’t too upset and when he met him he agreed, also, that no other name would suit.

I brought the carrier in and set it down on the porch where it was warm, dark and quiet, and opened the door and left him to get used to the house and my dog, Miss Melly, on his own. My young sons were living with their dad while I recovered from a brain aneurysm and surgery. I missed them so much, it was like a toothache in my heart. When Paula mentioned that she had kittens, I would get myself another baby, to ease the ache. One that I was well enough to care for.

The next morning, I heard him between the dresser and wall, so I reached for him, and got scratched. For the first week, the only evidence that I had a new kitten was the Band-Aid on my finger. We left each other alone and he discovered behind the refrigerator and he hung out there for a week or so. He would call for me and I would get him out and hold him and talk to him in the same cooing voice that Paula had used and pet him. As soon as I finished he was gone again, under the couch, behind the entertainment center, behind the fridge.

It got to be a routine, when he wanted me, he would call me, that piteous young kitten distress call, and I would find him, and give him some love and a little milk and then, whoosh! He was gone again. I was pleased to see he was using the litter box, so I left him alone on that point.

Thanksgiving came, and I was gone most of the day, at my parent’s. The dog was with me, too, so Chester was left alone. Friday night, I heard his call, but couldn’t find him. I looked in all his usual places, with the flash light but couldn’t find him. I would call his name and he would answer, but I couldn’t place where it was coming from.  

Then I realized it was coming from the wall. I have a wall furnace between the living room and dining room, and he had somehow gotten in there, dark, warm, and safe, for a kitten left alone on a holiday for humans. So I lie down on the dining room floor and slid my arm into the wall, not really knowing what to expect from this feisty little man. I was pleasantly suprised that he climbed into my hand, licking and purring, most happy to be found. I fondled him a moment, to calm him, and then started to slide my arm out. Ouch!  I hit the heating element with my arm. I was stuck. I rested my head on the floor, to think. My kitchen phone has a long cord so I tried stretching out, to grab the cord with my toes, and I think I was about an inch short, and every time I slid closer that way, I hit the heater again. I lie there in a T-shirt, and my pink rosebud panties, wishing I had trained Mel to bring me the cordless.

It was 10:30 Friday night, all my doors were locked. If I called the firemen, how would they get in? Did I want them to see me like this?  In my pink rosebud panties? They had just been here ten weeks earlier, when I had collapsed. What would they do if they saw me on the floor again, this time with my arm stuck in the wall? If I was admitted to the hospital, who would care for Chester, and Melly?

Then my poor brain, still recovering from the trauma of surgery, had a flash of brilliance. Turn the furnace off. I Blew on it, hoping to cool it faster, and lie there talking to Chet through the wall telling myself, as well, that we would get out of this. I beat death before, a stupid furnace wasn’t going to get me now.

Finally after about 45 minutes, the heater cooled and even though I had a second degree burn on my arm I gritted my teeth, and pulled past the pain, the opposite of childbirth. We were free! We celebrated with some leftover turkey and now Chester is my best friend. He helps me drink my morning coffee, jumps in the tub with me and then expects to be dried, and then brushed. I had to put a towel on my printer because when I spend time on the computer, he is here with me.

It almost seems that our roles have reversed. The baby I had gotten to care for, now cares for me. He follows me from room to room, watching. At night, he lies on my pillow and washes my hair, which was shaved for the surgery, and is taking it’s own sweet time growing back. He is gentle on my scar though, and I really believe he is helping it heal.

I know he has helped heal my poor broken heart, and body, a friend when I need one, guardian of my feet.

Submitted by Katie Wozny   [email protected]