Cat Spirit 

I’ve always had cats as pets, and the very first cat I knew was a black cat named Mish, whom my parents had gotten about a year or two before I was born. Mish and I grew up together, but it wasn’t until I was in my teenage years that we really bonded at all. Then, when I was in my last years of highschool, he finally passed away in his sleep.

After Mish, my father and I adopted four new cats, all brothers. It was my job to give them their daily canned food after I got home from school.

One day, I was standing in the middle of the kitchen with the cat food dish, chopping up the wet food into smaller chunks before setting it down. None of the cats were in the kitchen at the time - it was a nice day, so they were sunbathing on the porch - and yet I very distinctly felt something brush against my leg, and out of the corner of my eye, I got the impression of something black and cat-sized just where I’d felt movement. I immediately turned to look, and there was nothing there. I hadn’t heard the cat flap at all, and when I went to look, all four cats (including the black one) were on the porch just as I’d thought.

I’ve always been a bit of a skeptic, but I’d like to think that Mish was happy enough in life to stop by and say hello once in a while, even after his death. This is the one experience I’ve ever had that makes me feel I’ve touched the other side, and it’s helped me to deal with the loss of other cats in the years since it happened.