Rounding the corner of Alvira Street and Whitworth Drive during my morning walk in the old hood, I knew exactly what “Chester” would do.
The moment I came into view - as I did every day at about 7:37 A.M. - he scaled an impossibly high garden wall, padded across its crest and perched by his gate.
He could’ve been my furry WalMart greeter, minus the vest. But my encounters with him lingered far longer than those between store employee and potential customer. Chester’s “Good morning,” stuck with me the whole day.
It began with a kiss.
I’d slow my pace along the sun-bleached adobe over which arms of bright bougainvillea drooped. Chester would poke out his cheek. I’d tilt my chin up and to the right. His whiskers brushed my temple and eyelid. I giggled.
Chester, who looked anywhere from 10 to 400 years old, then jumped effortlessly down to the sidewalk. I pressed my back against the warm adobe and slid down to the ground. He studied me with his green-gold eyes and purred as my fingers danced over his crown.
After about a minute of cooing, Chester decided it was time to “make biscuits.” He reached his front paws up, planted them on my right shoulder and began kneading.
Chester worked my skin and muscle firmly without a hint of claw. He pushed in and pulled out alternately with his front paws, perhaps trying to coax a primordial teat, imprinting me with his scent or just telling me he was happy. The net effect was an unequalled Swedish massage - and the message that I mattered
Our ritual endured for 12 years. Some years into it, Chester stopped leaping like an acrobat, though his kneading was no less deep. One morning, Chester was nowhere in sight. I did not see him the next day. Or the following week.
I never knew, but I knew. The shade of his loss dampened the morning sun which was all that was left to kiss my cheek.
I never walked the same path again.
Two years later, I moved away. Chester’s memory was filed into my past until just now when I touched my bursitis-ridden shoulder and felt something missing. Not so much in my body as in my heart.
In daily life, emotional anesthesia can be a convenient coping mechanism easily taken too far. How many times, I have felt compelled to look past another being’s suffering — or even their basic need for connection — in order to manage my own existence. I forgot that my existence depends upon my connectedness with others. In the hospital wards where I work. On the streets where I walk.
Thank you, Chester, for imprinting me with the scent of connection. Help me make each greeting last — for I never know when my next greeting will be my last. Or how wide that net shall be cast.
One way or another, everyone needs to be kneaded.