The loss of a cat is a very emotional event to go through and can affect everyone in the family a little differently.
The grieving process can also be different for everyone. Some questions that you may have are:
- Did my cat suffer during the transition process?
- Can I really be feeling my cat’s presence even though they have passed on?
- Did I really hear my transitioned cat meow when I walked through the front door?
- Did my cat know that I didn’t want to put him down but that I felt it was the best thing for him in order to end his suffering?
These are some of the most frequently asked questions that I’m asked to provide answers to when communicating with a cat (or any animal) that has made their transition. In addition, if you have a pet that you believe is in the process of transitioning, I can help to make that process a less stressful for your pet. I do this by communicating with him/her during the process so that they have a better understanding of what is happening. Through years of experience in helping people through this grieving process, I have found the following to be consistently true.
It’s important to understand what happens to a cat (or any animal) after they’ve transitioned and are no longer in body. When a cat’s spirit, or life force energy, leaves their body, they enter into a regeneration process. This process allows their energy to begin to heal and restore itself. The energy will continue in this regenerative phase until it is whole and back to its full strength. This process is unique to each animal and can take less than a day to a month or more. It all depends on the condition of the cat’s energy and the state the cat was in prior to transitioning.
During the regeneration process, the cat’s energy does have the ability to frequent the realm in which we live. Often, they will come back to visit to ensure that the family they left behind is well and that they haven’t left any unfinished business. Family members may notice a flash of light or dark streak out of the corner of their eye. However, when they turn to look, nothing is there. Perhaps an area where the cat used to like to lay will feel warm or ruffled as if something had been lying there. Or, the family will hear the cat’s vocalizations or tapping on the floor. These are often signs that the cat’s essence has come back to visit.
They will also visit the other animals in the household to leave their imprint, or specific Teachings, behind. The other animals will take these teachings and carry them forward. Often you will see an animal that is presently in the household start to develop traits and characteristics that the transitioned animal used to possess. For example, the cat that transitioned may have been fearful of thunderstorms. Now, another animal in the household has picked up this trait when it hadn’t existed previously in that animal.
As time goes by, the cat will visit less frequently. They will begin to focus more on their regeneration process and rejoining the universal Source energy. However, they are always around if we need them. All you have to do is quiet your mind, open your heart and ask for them to visit with you.
Do you think sometimes it is due to deeply engrained habits and routines so we expect to hear some things at certain times and if the cause of the sound is not actually there are brain still hears it because it is programmed to hear it. I don’t know, I’m just looking at alternative and more scientific explanations which is the kind of thing you would do anyway.
Nothing more to say really – wide awake in bed unable to sleep after burying him and pad-pad-pad noise into the bedroom, around the foot of the bed up to my side of the bed same as he had done every night since being adopted. Then I thought “don’t be daft, Scrapper’s dead!” and I hear the little paws pad-pad back the way they’d come. I still wonder what would have happened had I not thought that. Affy was on the bed and took no notice of the sounds which meant it wasn’t a feline intruder.
My previous home was haunted by a tabby cat – I once crept up and almost touched it thinking it was Squeak playing kitty-hide-and-seek. Squeak sometimes attacked thin air, acting the same way as if it was a cat and then being very confused to find nothing tangible there. I think it must have lived in the house before I moved there as I saw it often and just got used to having it around.
I’m always dubious of “visits” when the mind is just dozing off or just waking up as that’s when you get hypnopompic and hypnogogic hallucinations where the subconscious mixes reality with internally-generated image and sound.
A few months after my Binnie past I woke up hearing her voice and had a genuine fright that she was locked outside so I jumped out of bed and went out to the garden and then realised she was dead. I genuinely believed she was alive and it was quite disturbing. This happened twice or 3 times for a while.