I found him in a tree 16 years ago this past August. I was going to go for a walk with my then boyfriend, Keith, and I wanted to go to the cemetery where my friend, Dale, was buried. This was in Chatham, NJ. As we walked up Fairmount Ave, we heard a cat meowing. Above us. We looked up and there was a sad little kitten out on a branch, mewing piteously for help. We weren’t really sure what to do, but decided we had better do something. So Keith decided to climb up out onto the branch and drop the kitten down to me. I don’t know what I was thinking of, agreeing to try to catch a live animal out of the air, but I did. I basically caught him by the neck (nice), but instead of being further traumatized by this injustice, the kitten curled up against my left shoulder and started purring. He was wet and skinny and clearly had been out in the elements for a few days (it had been raining for a while and I think this was the first nice day in several). We went to the front door of the house closest to the tree and rang the doorbell. No one answered. It was a Sunday morning, so they could have been away for the weekend or at church or who knows what. We didn’t want to just leave the kitten, not knowing if he belonged there anyway, so we walked back down the hill to the police station.
The officer on duty was a very tall, black man – we’re talking about 6’3″ and muscular. We explained what had happened, assuming he would take the kitten and do what needed to be done. He looked at us and said, “is the kitty fierce?” I looked back at him – large, powerful him – and at the kitten purring in my arms and said, “I’m pretty sure you could take him.” He looked up the phone number of the house where we said the tree was and called. He left a message explaining the situation and that they could call if this was their cat. Then he told us he would just be sending the cat to a shelter, but being Sunday, the shelters weren’t open, so we might as well take the cat home today and take him to the shelter ourselves. In hindsight, none of this makes any sense to me, but it was 16 years ago and the world is a different place now. So we took him home.
As I said, he was wet, skinny, bedraggled – and crawling with fleas. We actually had three other cats in the apartment at that time (one was mine, two were Keith's), so we shut the kitten in the second bedroom and gave him some food and litter. We quickly noticed that something wasn’t quite right with him. Every few steps he tried to take, he would fall over. Like his hips weren’t working right or something. But he was cheerful enough and very cute.
The next day I dropped him at the local shelter and told them the story, in case anyone called in looking for him. They told me I could call in a few days to check up on him. When I did call, they explained that no one had come to claim him and that clearly something was wrong with him because of the falling down. The shelter had a policy that they couldn’t adopt out unhealthy animals and told me that either I had to come back and take him or they would have to put him down. I couldn’t live with that guilt, but I also didn’t really want to take on another animal at that point. So I contacted another friend, Amy, who was an avid animal lover and asked her to come to the shelter with me, hoping she would want to adopt him instead. For reasons I can’t remember now, a third friend, Christine, accompanied us – I think she and her husband were considering adopting a dog, so she thought it was a good chance to check out the animals at the shelter.
Because the kitten was not eligible for adoption, he was being kept in a back area, away from the public. One of the shelter workers took Amy and me back to see him. As soon as she opened his cage, he stretched up his front paws to my shoulder and climbed onto me like he was giving me a hug. And that was a done deal. There was no way I could let him die or even let anyone else adopt him. He had marked me as his and that was that. Amy, in the meantime, saw another kitten in a cage and asked why he wasn’t out front. They explained that he was a biter and thus they couldn’t adopt him out either and would instead have to euthanize him. Amy went to pieces. She started crying and telling them they couldn’t kill him, that she would take him. I can’t remember all the details, but somehow they all reached an agreement that Amy wouldn’t hold the shelter responsible for any biting or bad behavior on the kitten’s part. And she took him home and named him Oreo. As far as I know, he stayed a pretty nasty cat for his whole life. But she loved him (update from Amy: "Oreo recently passed as well. He had cancer and fought until the end. He was a sweet cat and only bit as a kitten because he came from a house with 3 year old triplets and was taken from his mother too early. He would get over excited. Once he had stability and grew up, he was such a good boy. I miss him a lot. I guess they are back together now.").
In the meantime, Christine was out front waiting for us. There was a small black lab mix dog hanging out with the employee at the front desk. Turned out this dog had been at the shelter for a long time because no one wanted her. Christine fell instantly in love with this sweet girl and called her then husband, Chris. I don’t remember if they took her that same night or came back, but they adopted her and named her Janey. She was a super sweet dog, as shelter dogs almost always are because they know they’ve been given a second chance. Sadly, she didn’t live very long – I can’t remember how many years, but I don’t think it was more than four. But they were happy years for her and Christine and Chris adored her.
I brought my kitty home and set about introducing him to the other cats. I don’t recall any big problems with the addition of a new cat. I had decided to name him Fairmount, after the street, with the nickname, Monty. But after several days of using this, I realized it wasn’t fitting him right. I sat on my bed playing with him and asked him what his name was. Suddenly a name jumped into my head and I said it out loud. Chester. He meowed at me immediately and that became his name. It was the perfect name for him.
I took him to the vet, a great love of a man who looked like Grizzly Adams. He said the falling down problem was actually a neurological condition, NOT a hip condition, that was called wobbly gait. He said he could send us to a neurologist and I could spend lots of money trying to solve this. Or we could wait and see and since Chester seemed to be getting stronger and healthier, that is what we did. He grew into a cat that ran and jumped and played just fine. He stopped falling down (I’ll confess, I kind of missed it when it stopped) and showed no evidence he’d ever had a problem. Other than his slightly crossed eyes and his almost breathtaking level of stupidity. Seriously – one of the dumbest animals I have ever met. But hands down the sweetest. He loved to be carried on my hip like a baby, purring the whole time. He constantly gave hugs, standing up on his hind legs and stretching his front legs to my shoulder. When Mac, who became my husband, came into our lives, Chester took to him immediately, although he did insist on sleeping between us in our bed, pushing his gigantic paws into Mac's face. He also let Mac know whenever it was time for a haircut by grooming his head. Being the baby, Chester didn’t like it so much when I got pregnant and brought an actual human baby into the house, thus displacing him, but now once she got older and loved to pet him, he loved her back.
The last year or so was not kind to Chester. He was old. Skinny – too skinny. He had a thyroid condition that required daily medication, but we eventually took him off because it reduced his small appetite even further. He threw up more than he should and a couple of times vomited blood. He slept a lot. His fur got pretty ratty and he eventually couldn't walk very well – it’s like time was running backwards. One of his last nights, he tried to sit and his hind legs kept sliding out from under him. But he was still incredibly sweet and happy. The vet couldn't figure out exactly what might be causing the blood and vomit and we weren't willing to do anything too invasive at his age. We kept him as comfortable and pampered as we could, hoping that he wasn't suffering.
After the weird leg sliding night, I made another appointment with the vet for yesterday, just to see where things stood, if there was anything else we could do. Sunday night, we explained to our daughter that we were taking him in and that it didn't look good. As a family, we sat together on the couch, petting and brushing Chester. He purred and seemed happy.
Yesterday, when I woke up, Chester wasn't in his usual spot, but instead was sleeping in a closet. He crawled out and just lay down next to his water bowl, not drinking, merely staring at it. After about 10 minutes, he crawled back into the closet. I had to go out and did so not certain he would still be alive when I returned. He was, but it seemed just barely. I took him in and she said he was very dehydrated, had lost a massive amount of weight. She gave me a couple of things we could try, but none had any guarantee - I think she was just throwing me a lifeline in case I wasn't ready to let him go. I wasn't, but I knew it was time.
She gave him the sedative and he lay down immediately and the light just went out of his eyes. He tried to throw up a little, so the vet moved him to another towel. He lay so still after that. She gave the second shot and listened while his heart slowed, then stopped. I stayed with him a while after that, petting his head, feeling my heart crack into a million pieces. I hope he knew I was with him until the end, that he was still my baby, that he saved me just as much as I saved him.
Even with two other cats and a dog in the house, it seems too quiet. He's not lying in his bed next to me as I work on the computer. He's not whining at me for food that he will only eat three bites of and then walk away.
I know he was just a cat. I know life goes on. I know it will get better. But not today.
I also know there will never be another like him. For as much as he was probably an embarrassment to every other cat who has ever lived, he was amazing.
