Visitors in My Home: The Spirit Kind

I think I was inspired to do this article/review after reading one of my friends review at Ciao about her experiences with a ghost in her home, as I've had my own "visitors"...one seen, the rest not seen. Before I relate my first "ghostly" or spirit visitor I have to back track a bit.

This was many years ago when my grandmother, mother and I went on our yearly vacation to the Lancaster, Pa area some 200 miles away from where I lived in the NYC area. At the time my great-grandmother, a feisty, lively 98 year old was still alive and was to be looked in on and taken care of by her many neighbors. The date of this experience was August 31, 1970. On that date, it was late at night and we were all settled in and watching the Johnny Carson show..so figure maybe around 11:45 p.m. All of a sudden I became aware of the overpowering scent of a cologne...Lily of the Valley, the cologne my great-grandmother loved. I asked my grandmother and mother if they smelled it, and the two just looked at me like I had lost my marbles and said no. Very early the next morning, we got a phone call from one of my great-grandmother's neighbor's. My great-grandmother had, had a fall earlier that day. The neighbor, was going to visit her to check in on her to see if see was all right, and from the door, heard a moaning sound. Having spare keys, the neighbor opened the door and found my great-grandmother lying on the floor. She called 911 for an ambulance and she went to the hospital. She was to live several hours, but later died......the exact same time I smelled that scent of Lily of the Valley some 200 miles away.

Years were to pass. Now I've read enough paranormal type books to know that many think that those in the spirit world, time means nothing, to them, many years to us may only seem like minutes to them. It was late one night, around 3:30 a.m. I was still awake reading. Both my mother and grandmother were sound asleep. Suddenly something made me look up from my reading...at the entrance to the bedroom was a white form, a woman's form ...and I recognized the woman as my great-grandmother. The moment I acknowledged "seeing" something however, the form vanished.

Now the really weird thing...why did my great-grandmother appear to me? Was it due to the fact that we had a connection? My grandmother and mother always said my personality was more like my great-grandmother's (and father's) rather than either of them. Also odd, was I've never had a "visit" from the spirit of my grandmother who died in 1986, nor my mother who died in 2006. Was this due to the fact I wasn't as "connected" to them?

However a strange occurrence did take place back in 2006. But this time I believe one of my cats, Pyewacket, a black cat, sensed something. Pyewacket used to love hopping on the sofa and cuddling up with my mother, keeping her company. Then all of a sudden he stopped, he just wouldn't go near her. This went on for about a week or so. Then my mother became gravely ill and had to go to the hospital. She had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer in June of 2005, but it wasn't the cancer to claim her life but a case of pneumonia. She was in a medicated coma for about two weeks, with very little hope of recovery. On a Saturday night, August 26, 2006, I was talking on the phone to a friend of mine when I became aware of Pyewacket jumping up on the sofa...he hadn't done that in ages. I even mentioned it to my friend and she said, "Maybe it's a sign of something." The next day I went to the hospital, one to visit my mother, and two, I needed a signed letter from the doctor to explain why she couldn't attend an upcoming court appearance we had to go to on August 30th. While I was waiting for the doctor, I bent over and asked my mother over and over again, "Do you want to go?" As I said, the chances of my mother's recovery was zero, it was getting to the point where I would have to consent to authorize the medical staff to pull the plug from her life support and respirators. So I continued to ask her, "Do you want to go?" Now even though she was in a coma, they say that one can still hear in the coma state. Finally the doctor came in, we talked awhile, then all of a sudden the vital signs all dipped....My mother was "crashing". The crash team came within minutes to try and revive her, but it was a no go.

But what was the story with my cat? Did he sense my mother's presence the night before? Did he sense she was in the early stages of dying?

Now spirit "visitors" I believe don't always have to be of the human kind. Presently, I only have two cats, but for many years I had many more...in fact, I've had cats ever since I was five years old having my first cat, Babette, in 1962. I can't help thinking that often some of my spirit visitors are of the feline persuasion. Sometimes I'm busy, working on my computer, and out of my peripheral vision I see "something", some kind of a form on floor level , but when I look directly at the spot expecting to see one of my cats, nothing is there. Then other times, I swear my two cats "see" something. I probably have the most subdued cats going, very quiet in other words. But then every once in awhile one of them will go absolutely berserk. Now people with pets will know what I mean by this. For those who have more than one pet, you may experience where your two cats or dogs might chase each other, right? Well, that's what happens with one of my cats. One will start running around the apartment as if chasing another cat, but of course, there's no one there. Are they indeed chasing the spirit of one of my former cats?

The next story will probably seem the strangest of all to you. And once again it has to deal with feline "visitors" I swear though it's one-hundred percent true. It was Halloween 2007. I had recently learned that only a few days before one of my cats, Footie who had been adopted by a friend of mine had died. His real name was Koshka, but I had always called him Footie as he was one of those cats who had extra toes. On Halloween, I set up a special place up with candles as part of a ritual I do every Halloween...the idea of remembering the dead, as supposedly the veil between worlds, that of the living and dead is the thinnest. If you are of the Pagan or wiccan persuasion you know precisely what I'm talking about, but it's a belief held by many who don't follow this path, such as Latino cultures who observed El Dia de la Muertos..Day of the Dead. In these Latino cultures they will often go to the cemeteries, set up a virutal "picnic" for the departed and remain there all night.

So here I was, with my Halloween set up, and since Footie had just died, I thought, as silly as it may sound to some, I thought to dish out some cat food and place it on the table near my candles. I then went back to my computer in the living room and was working some more. My two cats were sound asleep on top of the cushions/piilows of my sofa...in other words they were in plain sight of me the whole time, neither moved the whole time. Then I had to get up and go to the bedroom, where I had my Halloween set up to get a book I had there. At first nothing "registered" as I was intent on finding the book, but then I looked to where I had my Halloween candle set up and the dish of cat food...uh, but nothing was there! Yes the dish was there, but the food was completely gone! I'm like HUH? Was it possible the spirit of Footie was there, or maybe any one of my other cats no longer alive? I realize this must sound very "Twilight Zone" to most of you but I swear this event did happen. Consequently, I did the same set up last Halloween (2008)...but didn't have the same experience occur. Whatever did happen though, I really like to think, that one time, my cats did come to "visit" me that Halloween in 2007.

This article also appears at Ciao ©2009 as my pen name of pyewacket