Chester's Wake

"Chester, Arden Cat"
That's the inscription on Chester's brick in the moonlight theater outside the Gild Hall in Arden, Delaware.

Chester showed up hungry the morning I moved in to the "Chicken Coop" at 1805 Inn Lane. Then he started bringing his friends. At one point, the "breakfast club" had about 15 members. Arden was my sanctuary from the "real world," and my little feline friends were more than just cats--they were the Fey folk of Arden, the Little People. In 1992, they were a fat and happy bunch, and I'd become the Cat Lady of Arden.

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When Chester passed away at Beltane (May) of 1998, at the ripe old age of "damn-near-twenty," the club had long since disbanded. Chester had actually spent his retirement patrolling the barn at my friend Nancy's farm after we left the Chicken Coop in 1995. But Chester was no ordinary cat. While Nancy's barn suddenly became overrun with mice, Chester's eulogy ran in the June 1998 issue of the Arden Page:

A Wake for a CAT? The miniature settings theme for the 2003 Philadelphia Flower Show was "Celebrations." I kicked ideas around, but they all seemed so...ordinary... I got to thinking about Chester while my dear old cat and furry soul-mate, Willow, was dying in the summer of 2002. As Willow made his journey to the summerland, memories of all the old Breakfast Club members came flooding back, as if they were all waiting on the edge of that other world to greet him as he crossed over. They all touched my life so deeply during our time together, and I've always wanted to memorialize them, and pay tribute to that wooded, bohemian sanctuary where we spent our happiest times. Just being accepted for entry at the 2003 Flower Show was a grand tribute. Winning the second place ribbon was truly the icing on the cake.		"Chester's Wake" on display at the 2003 Flower Show

		The Coop Many of the homes in Arden have odd little names, for one reason or another. Our little place was known as "the Chicken Coop," for the very simple and boring reason that it had originally BEEN a chicken coop in the 1920s. It was funky. It was cute. It was tiny, and it smelled weird, but it was one of the few places on this earth I've really felt at home.
The "real" Chicken Coop, Arden, Delaware, 1993

Arden folk will likely recognize the place, and a lot of the little Arden "things" featured in the scene. For example, the phrase "tomorrow is a new day" that appears on the little tudor-style cat house is a take-off on the carved lintel over the door of the "Founders House" across the green. Aptly named after Shakespeare's enchanted forest from "As You Like it," Arden is a place of unusual surprises, a magical community that defies description or categorization. All I can say is that when I would turn on to Miller's Road from Marsh, I swear I could feel the trees closing behind me like the mists of Avalon. Until I had to pass through them again in the morning, I was safe for the night from the cruel outside world.

Alas, life moves on. There are new mousers in Nancy's barn, and Chester was laid to rest under a dogwood in her front yard. Willow is buried in my front yard beneath a weeping willow, flanked by two pussy willows. And Xander, the last surviving member of the Breakfast club, now lives with my sister in North Wilmington. I've made my home on a 14 acre farm in Elkton, Maryland with many new critters and my human soul-mate, Jim. But part of our souls will always dance and play at our beloved "Chicken Coop" in the enchanted forest of Arden.

Chester's Wake isn't just about Chester. It's a celebration of Arden, and all the cats that grace our lives with their brilliant souls. It's about being "different," and proud of it. It's about healing. It's about reaching that point when you can remember a loved one who's passed on, or a special place you had to leave, with a smile instead of tears.

It's a celebration of life, be it one, or nine of them, well-lived.