23 Comments
User's avatar
JS Hyder's avatar

Always see them for a few days after they pass, just walking or sitting in my peripheral vision. They always move on. When we have to PTS at the vets it's like a day later, like they've come home for a final visit. The strongest sense of that was one of our dogs, two days later there was a strong dog hair smell and a presences of her in the doorway. I was happy she'd come home, but this could all be an overactive imagination and need to cling on to them, either way, they come home.

Expand full comment
Charlotte Dune's avatar

Yes! They come home, either for real or at least in our troubled minds and so interesting on the delay. I’m glad the mobile vets exist so more people can be at home with their loved ones at the end.

Thank you for sharing this. ❤️ Love our fur babies!

Expand full comment
Erin Q.'s avatar

I really enjoyed your story, and the stories shared by the 2 commenters. I had a strange and memorable experience losing a beloved pure white long-haired magical kitty I was very close to. He was very old and sick, and my sister and I had to take him to the emergency vet at 2:00 AM one morning. There was nothing they could do, so they gave him the meds to ease his suffering once and for all. It was time. I had never witnessed a death before, and it affected me profoundly. I could not speak. I could not get the memory out of my head. I couldn’t go to work. The very next night, I was outside by myself on a perfectly clear night with a full moon having a sneaky cigarette at my partner’s house. I don’t usually smoke, and I am not normally outside late at night. So I look up into the clear sky and there it was: a *huge* cloud out of NOWHERE that looked EXACTLY like a beautiful white cat floating towards the moon. I couldn’t believe my eyes!!! I took it as a sign that our beloved kitty’s soul had crossed over successfully. I was flooded with peace and gratitude, and necessary grief. It was truly remarkable. We know so little about what happens after death. Look for the signs. Thanks for reading.

Expand full comment
Charlotte Dune's avatar

Woah!! This is so beautiful and the opposite of the main image I picked for this piece! The beautiful cloud kitty! ☁️

Witnessing death is really so intense, but I guess we all must go through these experiences. Likewise, I still remember seeing my childhood dog die and though I didn’t experience anything supernatural, the image of that also is still with me.

Rest in peace these beautiful animal companions!

Expand full comment
Stephen Bradford Long's avatar

A paranormal story: my father is a Protestant exorcist, and he would take me to his prayer sessions. I saw some crazy shit growing up. Nothing you see in Hollywood, but still scary and upsetting.

Expand full comment
Charlotte Dune's avatar

Woah!! What kind of stuff?

I saw a Pentecostal exorcism once in Cameroon. Was very intense. And I knew the person well who was being exorcized which made it super weird.

Expand full comment
Stephen Bradford Long's avatar

You probably saw what I saw. Lots of vomiting, screaming, convulsing. At times it bordered on violent. Scary shit.

Expand full comment
Charlotte Dune's avatar

Yes. That is what I saw. Def violent. Very disturbing. Will never unsee.

Wild that you’ve seen that multiple times!

Expand full comment
Stephen Bradford Long's avatar

Yup! It was a big part of my childhood

Expand full comment
Charlotte Dune's avatar

Wow! You should consider writing a memoir if you haven’t already.

Expand full comment
Guy James's avatar

Cats can see ghosts. I lived in a haunted house once with two cats, and they used to freak out regularly at 'nothing'. I could feel the presences but they could see them, I'm sure.

Expand full comment
Charlotte Dune's avatar

Yes! And ok I need to hear more about the haunted house.

I think babies can also maybe see ghosts.

Expand full comment
Guy James's avatar

It was in the UK, in Brighton. Some very strange synchronicities… I moved in there with some friends, and we were all obsessed with the film Performance, directed by Nic Roeg and Donald Cammell, starring Mick Jagger and James Fox. We watched it loads of times, along with 2001: A Space Odyssey. In ‘Performance’, as you may know, Jagger’s character is a musician (appropriately) and in a famous scene he is sitting in this big bath on the downstairs floor with these two women. In the house we moved into, there was a grand piano upstairs, and downstairs this big bath, exactly like the one in the film. In the film Jagger is called Turner. Our landlord (who lived upstairs with the piano) was called Turner.

So the ghost bit was that almost every evening my friends’ two cats used to suddenly freak out, get startled, as if someone had come in. Like, a lot: their fur would stand on end, their tails would go up, they would start miaowing in that way they do when they are scared. My bed was in what should have been the living room, but we were poor and shared the house and it became a bedroom so the rent would be cheaper.

When I got into bed and while I was lying there, I could feel people walking around the room, around my bed. It’s the same as if you’re in a room and you feel that someone else has come in, but without hearing or seeing them, you just know someone else is there. Obviously this freaked me out, and the cats confirmed it was not my imagination (and I’ve never had that feeling in any other house). I had trouble sleeping with that going on, understandably.

But after a while I realised that these people couldn’t see me, and didn’t know I could feel their presence. They were just going about their business in a sort of day-to-day way. So eventually I got used to it, because nothing sinister would happen, I would just feel these presences, and I never got the feeling they were trying to interact with me in any way.

After we moved out though, we learned that that house (and specifically the basement where we lived) had been the headquarters of the British Nazi party in the 1930s! Good job I didn’t know that while I was there…

Expand full comment
Charlotte Dune's avatar

So wild on the Performance film! I have seen that but it’s been ages. Need to watch again. This whole story is amazing. And freaky!

Expand full comment
Charlotte Dune's avatar

And CRAZY that it was a Nazi house! Yikes!

Expand full comment
Guy James's avatar

yeah it was a very strange time overall. what really amazes me now was that I got used to it and went to sleep normally every night

Expand full comment
Charlotte Dune's avatar

Desensitized to the ghosts!

Expand full comment
Sandra L. Young's avatar

This is too spooky fun, Charlotte!

Expand full comment
Charlotte Dune's avatar

👻👻👻

Expand full comment
Wendy Parciak's avatar

For about a year after my cat died, I had extremely vivid dreams (?) in which he was still alive inside the walls of our house. I would wake up certain he was still alive. I had this experience with one of my dogs, too.

Expand full comment
Charlotte Dune's avatar

The ghost cats roam! Did you also dream about the dogs?

I’ve had a sort of similar experience with two humans that died, but never my past dogs.

Expand full comment
Wendy Parciak's avatar

Yes, I did have it with one of my dogs- I think he had actually found the cat and they were together inside the wall.

Expand full comment
Charlotte Dune's avatar

Woah! And I’m sorry for your loss and that experience if it was unpleasant or distressing to have these dreams, but this is fascinating! These are the kinds of stories I’m interested in hearing. Really feel like something we can’t see occurs immediately after death.

Expand full comment