Okay, speaking of cats:

I used to kid with my mother that my cat Shadow was her "granddaughter" and gave her a picture of her. Mom displayed it on one of her bookshelves, and repeated my comment to visitors. Shadow got cancer, and I knew after two surgeries and chemotherapy that she wasn't going to make it. I kept Mom apprised of developments. One morning, when Mom was watching TV, Shadow's picture fell off the bookshelf. She put it back up. A few minutes later, it fell off again. Mom replaced it again. The third time it fell, she said, "Okay, I get the message. But I'm not calling my daughter because if the cat's really dead, she'll be too upset to talk to me right now." The picture stayed put after that. The morning all this happened was the morning I took Shadow in to have her put to sleep.

Mom's door and windows were closed. There was no fan or air conditioner running. There had been no vibrations from neighboring apartments, and her building was far enough off the road that vibrations from a passing heavy vehicle didn't cause the picture to fall. She told me there was no reason for the picture to keep falling off the shelf, and there was no reason for it to have stopped falling after she announced that she'd gotten the message.

Mom had other "visitations" as well: clocks falling off walls, knicknacks carefully turned on their sides, etc. They didn't scare her, but rather frustrated the hell out of her. "It's like being sent a blank telegram," she used to say. "Somebody's sending me a message, about SOMETHING but they won't tell me what about!" The instance with Shadow's picture was the only one that was clear.

Given Mom's sensitivity (and mine, on occasion) to the "paranormal" I kind of expected a message when she passed away - falling pictures, phantom phone call, whatever - but didn't get one. I distinctly got the impression, however, that she was Quite Put Out about all of the strangers in her home after she died: the police, the Telophase folks, and some friends who came to give moral support. I half expected to see her coming out of her bedroom saying, "Who the hell are all these people nosing about my things????!?" Pretty creepy feeling.

G