In the 1960’s, when I was about 8 years old, my family lived in a small hollow down off Fort Hill in Charleston. Our house had been built in the 1920’s, and my deceased aunt & her family had lived there before I was born.
One night, I was asleep on the couch with my cat. It was very, very late & I was in a deep sleep when my cat awoke me by hissing, growling, spitting, and just generally throwing a fit. I was surprised because he never behaved like that. I was turned facing the back of the couch and the cat was snuggled between me & the couch. Thinking I must have crowded him, I petted him & mumbled something. But the cat wasn’t looking AT me while he freaked out; he was looking PAST me, into the dark center of the room.
He was standing by now, hackles raised, back arched, growling and hissing like crazy. I slowly turned & looked over my shoulder to where the cat was staring. There was a white mist, kind of column-shaped, no real form to it, hovering in the middle of the room! Almost immediately, it began to slowly fade, and at the same moment the cat stopped howling, settled in again, and fell asleep like nothing had happened. The mist faded completely, and was gone.
I didn’t sleep anymore that night and I never fell asleep on the couch again. Years later, as an adult, I learned that not only had my aunt lived in the house before us, she had also died there, in 1959, before I turned three. She was very fond of me, as I was her youngest brother’s first child. I like to think she was checking up on me….without expecting the cat to see her first!
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