Alice's Cats: Reader Submission

Here is a fabulous story written by Alice, from One Girl and Her Cats. I am so envious of her experience!
Thanks, Alice, for letting me use your story!

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The death of Mike’s grandmother has left things very raw inside of me. Memories both good and bad, wants, needs, questions, wonderings, regrets, fears; all are jumbled up together in my mind, sometimes making me happy, sometimes making me sad.

I have a picture on my desk.

It’s of two kittens cuddled up to one another in an old soft drinks crate lined with a thick woollen blanket. These kittens are Squealer and Jasmine. Squealer is almost certainly curled up on mum’s bed right now, dreaming about whatever it is cats dream.

Jasmine died a little over a year old after developing a rare blood disease that had lain dormant in her blood since birth.

Of course I missed her, madly, as did her sister, but life goes on, and gradually she became a happy but sad bitter-sweet memory.

That is, until the night she decided to return and pay me a visit.

Before y’all call the funny farm, it’s true. I was haunted by my dead cat.

Still am.

First time it happened it scared the life out of me:
I was asleep in bed one hot summer’s night and when I was suddenly aware of a cat walking up towards me (those with cats will know how they move when walking on a bed, paws indenting silently on the mattress) reached out a hand sleepily to stroke whoever it was.
And felt nothing.
Fair enough. No big deal. The cat had decided against it and jumped off.
I mentally shrugged and went back to sleep.
A few moments later; it happened again.
Again, I felt the paws, again I reached out, yawning. Again nothing.

Sighing, I closed my eyes again.
Only to have it happen once more.
This time the paws came all the way up the bed until whichever cat it was was right there next to me, and I was just drifting off again when the little bugger suddenly decided to touch my hot, bare skin with its exceptionally cold, wet nose.

That did it.

Sitting up I yelled at it to let me sleep - in my defense it was 1 O’clock in the bloody morning and I had had a very long day previously working my socks off in the Nursing Home - and I expected to hear the miscreant jump to the floor and leg it, but heard nothing.
Fully awake, I noted in the gloom that the door was closed.

Right. So that was it. Whoever it was wanted out.

Sighing and muttering things under my breath I wouldn’t care to repeat I got up and turned on the light. I would let the little git out once I had told it off (not that they cared. It would just make me feel better) and lectured it on the correct procedure for waking me up, which did NOT involve having a freezing wet nose poked at me at 1 in the morning...
I bent to look under the bed.
Nothing.
Oh.
Looking around the room, confused, I couldn’t see a cat anywhere. I peered under the bed again, this time pulling everything out. Nothing. Then I searched the entire floor. Nothing. Then I (now obsessively determined) checked in every nook, every cranny, every drawer, every box…Even the bookcase, flinging books behind me, and still nothing.

Bewildered, I shook my head.

Had I imagined it?

Exhausted, I tidied everything away (an excuse to check once more rather than a desire to be neat and efficient) and opened the door, meandering downstairs to grab a glass of water.
When I reached the hall I noted the living room door had shut itself – it does that sometimes if the back door is opened for whatever reason – and absentmindedly I opened it.
The light was still on, so I leant in to switch it off…

…And there they were. All three cats. Curled up asleep on the sofa.
I blinked at them in disbelief.

Walking back upstairs I rubbed the arm that I could have sworn the nose touched as I entered my bedroom, carefully checked none had followed me in and shut the door.

I must have imagined it, I conceded, doubtfully, flicking off the light and getting back into bed. After all, there was no possible way any of my three cats could have been in my room on my bed when every last one of them was asleep (and trapped) in the living room.

No, I must have imagined it. Slowly, my body relaxed and I began to drift off…

…Suddenly I started awake. It was maybe an hour later, and there it was again. I could feel the paws pressing silently onto the duvet beside my feet, feel the indents they made – was I going mad? Not one of the cats could be there, and yet there WAS a cat, on my bed.
Walking towards me.

I felt something soft and invisible brush against my upper thigh and started.
Fear washed over me.

…And then I heard it.

A purr.

It was a very quiet, very soft, gentle purr. A reassuring purr.
I knew it the second I heard it.

It was Jasmine.
MY Jasmine.
She was there with me, on the bed.
Happy.
And purring.

The fear melted away into pure, unadulterated joy.
For a few minutes I didn’t speak.

I felt her curl up, leant lightly against me, and lay down again.
A happy lump rose in my throat and tears filled my eyes.
“Goodnight, sweetie,” I whispered.

I reached down and felt nothing. But I knew she was there, and that night we both went to sleep happy, content, safe in the knowledge that the other was there.

When I woke up again she was gone.

It was months before she came again. But come she did, and this time when I felt the paws walk up the bed and reached out, I didn’t feel fear when my hand touched nothingness.

Just contentment.

She still visits. Not often.
But she does still visit.
When the girls are asleep in mum’s room, and Simba is roaming the night outside, I feel her paws treading the duvet and hear her purr. When that happens I feel happy that she’s still there, that she’s still with me, but at the same time feel cheated: it isn’t enough. I want her back.

But then, if Jasmine hadn’t died, we never would’ve gotten Simba, my darling, flabby little man, and possibly also would never have gotten Susie, either.

I guess life, and death, has its own agenda…