A Walk in the Park

Are you familiar with the rhyme that starts, ‘I have a little shadow that goes everywhere with me’? That is Smokey’s role in my world. When I am home he is always there beside me. On the couch, in the study, in the middle of a group of grandkids, on my bed when I am snoozing in the daytime…

At night he stays out in the main room and hangs out with our other cat, Oz. If he is allowed into our bedroom at night he often wakes us up – tugging on our arms or hands to either pet him or come and play. When I wake up he is sitting there at the gate waiting patiently for me to get up.

I realized the other night that I have a ‘night cat’. I’ve met him previously… here in this apartment. When I get up to go to the washroom this other cat wanders through the short walk through closet to brush against my legs while I sit on the ‘throne’. In my sleepy mind I had not registered the strangeness of this… just that he’s there. It was only the other night that I reached down to pet him and he was gone.

Hmmm … that woke me up that much more and made me think. I can clearly see in my mind’s eye his lanky body – very similar to Smokey’s but he is not as white of face and feet – and I realized I’ve been watching him for quite some time. Not a dream cat. I am awake. Mind you … realizing you’ve just ‘seen’ a night time cat … does make you double check that you ARE IN FACT ON THE TOILET and not just dreaming.

So last night when I saw him sitting there in the bedroom – and then watched him again walk through the closet to my feet – I kept an eye on him. And again it slowly dawned on me … ‘this is the night time cat’. He did not disappear in a ‘poof’. As I reached down he turned and walked back into the bedroom and disappeared around the corner.

There are two ways that I can think of to make sense of this recurring experience. I know I have friends and relatives who would tell me this must be the spirit of another cat that lived here. My life has included enough inexplicable experiences to give this notion a nod.

But now … now there is another possible explanation. My night time cat is an hallucination. People with LBD often report seeing ‘fully formed, moving images of animals, strangers or children that seem completely real’. Eighty percent of diagnosed individuals report these hallucinations usually early in the disease progression. (I DO like the ‘early’ part …) That is according to the Michael J Fox Foundation’s research.

I was not afraid when I was thinking this through last night. More intrigued. Our brains are capable of many strange things. It did make me remember the number of times I ‘saw’ Paco (dearly departed donkey companion) after he died. I would see him in the woods, or sometimes in the front paddock. When I would refocus my gaze or head toward him he would be gone … those sightings always comforted me. I also often felt cats who had passed away jump onto my bed and curl up behind my knees. This would be at night. And I knew when I looked I would not ‘see’ them … it was just that I felt them near.

Now it is strange to have these two interpretations floating in my head. Do I have a connection with the spirits of the animals I have so loved … and maybe one who used to live right here and knows I am a night time cat person? Or … do I have LBD hallucinations?

Just my mind … watching my mind … lose its way?