TGIF: Remembering Chester

I wrote this last year…Sunday will mark two years since the big guy had to leave me. The late, great, Charles Bowden said”It’s terrible. What there is no defense against is real loss. If you’re close to someone and you love them and they die, no matter what the circumstance, there’s a hole in your heart. There’s no simple cure for that. One of the most lying words that’s come into use in lifetime is “closure”. If you go through a real wounding,there’s never closure. It never ends, you just learn to live with the wound.

Closure is apparently something sold by frauds and the psychology industry. Pain isn’t that bad…feeling bad isn’t that bad, staying that way is bad. You should feel bad when someone you love dies, you just shouldn’t wear black forever”. 

Indeed, life goes on. I still miss my friend and Miss Kitty still looks and pines for him. We’re both a little closer to seeing him again.

It was one year ago this morning that my beloved friend Chester went on before me.

I miss him a lot… Miss Kitty still looks for him and calls for him.

We’ll both see him again, but not for a while.

It’s not that I have the day of his departure written down…it’s that my spirit remembered that something awful had happened around this time.

It didn’t take long to remember what that “something” was.

They say that your body remembers traumatic events and on the anniversaries of those traumas, it reacts with sickness or depression.

I’m at the age now when the number of those traumas fill more of the calendar than those days that are free from it.

Still, I’m also to the point with this trauma that I can smile at the memories of an exceptional friend rather than simply shedding tears that he’s gone.

Chester taught me something while he was here that I will carry with me until he’s in my lap again.

Chester wasn’t worried about comfort, he only cared about closeness.

He was one big cat and he wasn’t used to being around people.

He was so big that he couldn’t fit on my lap without sliding off one side or the other.

It wasn’t comfortable for either one of us, but he just wanted to be close.

Once when I had the plague/flu and had horrible chills he tried to help.

He climbed in bed , got under the electric blanket and the piles of other blankets , got as close as he could, and purred as hard as he could next to my face.

As he was already wearing a fur coat, he had to be miserable.

The purring worked and I soon fell asleep…but he stayed there until I woke up.

His only concern was staying close to the person he loved.

Life gets less and less comfortable as we age and those remembered traumas fill our days with memories of past pain and the fear of pain to come.

I’ve given up on expecting much comfort in this life…but it’s bearable if I know that Jesus is with me in it.

I care a lot less these days about comfort and a whole lot more about closeness.

I pray less about provision and more about presence.

I can handle the pain, but the void will ruin me.

Chester was noisy and ever present physically… I have to practice knowing the presence of God.

I’m still practicing.

He’s here.

Thank you for everything, Chester…I miss you a lot.

I’ll see you soon… the first time I see Him.

Make your own application…