I’m starting 31 Ghosts with a true story.

I’ve always been interested in the paranormal and especially in ghosts. My sister Jill and I had both experienced unexplained steps up and down the stairway in the middle of the night in the old house on a hill we lived in years before. Then there were the ghosts that violently slammed the doors in the building along the railroad tracks our dad had run his business from. All of this was before October 1, 1991.

October 1st has become a bittersweet day for me because while it marks the start of my beloved October, it also marks the anniversary of the day my dad died. That morning I started the day in school and after saying goodbye to his body at El Camino hospital I returned to school to get my books. I remember teachers saying, “Take the time you need,” and I remember saying “Oh, I’m fine, I’ll probably be back in a day or so…”

I was out at least a week.

The days passed in a blur of grief, coping, and lots of crying. There were a few moments that still stand out from that blur and this is one of them. It was early afternoon a few days later. Jill and I came out of the kitchen into the foyer by the front door of our house. To our left, our black cat Annie was starting down the hallway from my parents’ bedroom. Directly ahead, Mariah, our long-haired Himalayan cat, lazed on top of the stereo cabinet in the family room.

Annie caught our attention as he (yes, Annie was a “he” – that’s another story) tensed, turned slowly and arched his back, hair standing on end staring down the empty hallway in the direction of my parents’ door. Aside from Annie, the hallway was empty. Annie didn’t hiss, but still at full alert, backed slowly down the hallway towards us. He was tracking something.

Jill looked at me and said, “Are you seeing this?”

“Yes,” was all I could say. This wasn’t footsteps in the night, or a door slamming on the other side of a deserted building – this was right in front of us, and it was moving our way.

Annie had backed into the foyer by this point and the object of his attention moved into the family room in front of us. Mariah now saw the same object and immediately arched her back and her hair, too, stood on end (and if you’ve never seen a long-haired cat’s hair on end, it’s pretty funny in and of itself). Both cats were triangulating the same empty spot in space. Both cats attention remained focused on the spot as it moved deeper into the family room. It crossed the room to the spot on the couch where my dad used to sit (all dad’s have their “spot,” don’t they?). When it reached that spot, the cats both cautiously relaxed, their hair settling down.

“Dad’s here,” Jill said.

I nodded.

He didn’t manifest like that again for us. I don’t presume to know what happens to us after we die, but I found out later that we all had had similar dreams on about the same night a few weeks later involving my dad. In mine I came out of my room and poured myself a bowl of cereal before school. Mom was in the kitchen, and Jill was already at the breakfast table. My dad came out of his room, kissed my mom, and said goodbye to my sister and I – it wasn’t anything unusual, just a regular weekday morning farewell. But he was healthy. He stood in full health, not hobbled by surgeries or wracked by chemo. He smiled and we smiled back. And then he opened the front door and he left.

PS.
Writing this reminded me of one a particularly kind gesture. My dear friend Sarah’s mom, Pat, was the one who picked Jill and me up from school that October 1 after my dad had died. She dropped us off at the hospital and then went to our house where she removed all the reminders of the years-long struggle against cancer. When we got home later that afternoon all the pills, the bandages, the IV tree, the hospital bed that had dominated the family room for long weeks, they were gone. The house felt… normal. And because of that extraordinary gesture we were able to start moving forward instead of focusing on reminders of the immediate struggle. I had no reference at the time, and it’s only through the lens of the intervening years I’ve grown to understand how unbelievably kind and magnanimous that act was. I’m so thankful to Pat for that.