Spirit Cats and Black Dogs

I have had similar experiences myself. I once had a tiny black kitten, so small he fitted in the palm of my hand. I called him Nomi (after the German singer Klaus Nomi) and he was a member of the family until we moved to Belfast in 1987. Shortly after the move he went missing and from then on we would catch glimpses of him at night eating the food we left out for him. He had gone wild, or 'feral' as it is called. Despite all our efforts to get him back, he would not come near us. I moved back to Dublin later that year, resigned to the loss of my pet. I spent Christmas in hospital after a very bad car crash on the way to Clonegal. I had a fractured skull, fractured breastbone and had almost lost my left eye (my eyebrow had to be literally stitched back together). I really love Christmas and was feeling very sorry for myself missing all the fun. Lying dozing in my bed on Christmas Eve night, I felt a weight on my chest and opened my eyes to see an outline of Nomi, squatting on my chest. He was looking intently at me as he used to in the mornings when he wanted to coax me out of bed to feed him. He started purring gently when I opened my eyes and then faded away, leaving me with a lovely warm glow. I knew then my pet had passed on but felt really happy to know he had come back to me, even if only in spirit.

My second spirit pet is Zorai, a tiny fluffy grey-and-white, part-Persian kitten we got in 1992. We had her for only six months when she was killed tragically, leaving us heartbroken. Within a matter of weeks, my daughter Tanith and I were catching glimpses of her. She appears like a little silvery streak, jumping and playing around the house.