Have you ever had a NDE (near death experience)?

[Jeebo]

22. Thanks for sharing that, Cher.

I can't say that I've ever had any communications from cats from that other realm, but I did have one experience that was kind of like that. I said that those two out-of-body experiences I had in the 1970s were two of the most profound experiences I've ever had, but now I'll tell you about another one, also involving a cat.

I had an orange tabby cat whom I adopted in December 1984 from the Central Missouri Humane Society. They said he was four months old when I adopted him, and I had him for 17 years and four months, which was the longest time of any pet I've ever had. He had cancer in his jaw and the veterinarian got most of it, but she said she couldn't get it all without removing his entire jaw. The cancer will come back, she said, and when the time comes for me to perform a certain melancholy duty, "you will know it," she said.

Well, surprisingly, he lasted a few years after that, but one day, that predicted melancholy time came. It was, coincidentally, IRS income tax day, that's why I remember the exact date, April 15, 2002. I got up that Monday morning and gave him something to eat. Soft food always by then, because I knew trying to eat hard food must have been very painful for the little guy. He chowed down for a couple of minutes and then settled in to one of his perches for a nap.

It was at that moment, when he was settling in, that he looked me right in the eye, and I looked him right in the eye. Who was it who said that the eyes are windows into the soul? At that moment my feline buddy and I were looking into each other's souls, and there was a nonverbal communication that passed between us. I cannot put that communication into words because it was nonverbal, but the realization suddenly hit me, this is that melancholy time the veterinarian told me to look out for. Right now.

I called the veterinary clinic and they asked me how long it would take me to get there. About 30 minutes, I said. We'll be ready, they said. At the office the veterinarian, the same one who had operated on his jaw a few years earlier, said that yes, I picked the right time for this sad, bittersweet event. She told me to pet him and talk to him while the lethal chemicals were doing their thing. "Let your voice be the last thing he hears," she said.

I had been kind of numb emotionally until then, but when she said that, the realization suddenly hit me like the proverbial wall of bricks that I would never see the little guy again, that he would never again jump up into my lap and get in my way while I was trying to work at the computer, that I would never again stand at the front door trying to coax him inside for the night so I could go to bed, that none of those things involving my little feline buddy and me would ever happen again. I'm afraid I lost it then. As I gently stroked the top of his head and tried to talk to him, I couldn't say anything, I could only whimper and sniffle. The veterinarian's assistant handed me a tissue.

About a half hour later, back at my house, something really weird happened. My brother, who was living with me in my house then, was just getting out of the shower. He gave me a questioning look and I answered, "Yes, the cat's dead." He said, "That's funny, I thought I just heard him in my bedroom." And at almost the same moment he said that, I heard it too. You live with an animal for more than 17 years, you know that animal's voice and you can recognize the things that animal says. I swear to God, that was my cat's meow coming from my brother's bedroom. I've often wondered if it could have been some other cat meowing from outside, but no, this was clear and had none of that muffled sound it would have had coming through the wall from outside the house. And I've never heard that sound coming from that bedroom at any other time in the 39 years I've lived in this house, before or since.

I have always believed, that was my little feline guy stopping by here to say goodbye on his way to wherever good cats and dogs go in the afterlife. I always will believe that.

And that day really was one of the most profound and unforgettable experiences of my life.

Who was it who said, if there are no animals in heaven, I don't want to go to heaven, I want to go wherever they go? Might have been Will Rogers, maybe somebody else.

-- Ron