About a month ago I was watching some Animal Planet show about cats with the kids.
One of the cat species profiled on the show looked a lot like our old cat Ginger.
I had never had a cat before her and, quite honestly, don't know if I'll ever have another cat. She was an awesome kitty right up to the end. So when we saw the cat that looked like her on TV we started to talk about all the Gingerisms she had like sleeping in the bathroom sink in the summer to her tendency to paw me in the nose in the morning to wake me up.
It was good times fondly remembering the family cat and shortly after, we all went to bed and drifted off to sleep.
And then it happened: In the middle of the night I swear I felt like she was walking on my bed. You know the sensation if you've ever had a cat or dog. I woke up the next day and thought about how I must have conjured up her spirit; about how talking about her brought a piece of her back into my life. I joked about how I thought her ghost was in my room and the kids and I just shrugged it off.
My son Cole asked if she got lost on the way to the Tropical World.
But since that night, I have had several - maybe a half a dozen - encounters in the middle of the night where I felt like she was walking on my bed. It's a very calming feeling despite the actually creepiness of thinking there's a kitty ghost up in the joint.
This one's for you Ginger...