In 1997 I adopted a pair of cats from the local RSPCA. One of them was a bouncy little ball of calico fun that stayed with me until last year. The other was a lovely mackerel tabby who had nothing but love to give; he would just sit in the lap of whoever was nearest and knead and purr, such a purr! and would lay on his side with his head on my pillow, facing me and purring, as I slept. I called him Gabriel, and he truly was a little angel! But he didn't appear to eat anything from the time he got through the door to the time he died on my bedroom floor. Having watched the other three of my cats gradually succumb to long illnesses, I know now that there must have been something seriously wrong with Gabriel even before I took custody of him; but at the time I was wracked with guilt.

However, it wasn't long before I began to feel strange things happening - at night, but not always at night (I have Non-24). When I was snuggled in bed, waiting to go to sleep - or sometimes just lazing in in the morning - I would feel a cat clamber up onto my mattress. Not at all unusual; it happened several times a night, given that I had three of them. However, sometimes I'd look round and there'd be no cat there. Eventually I took to just saying "goodnight, Gabriel" and curling back over, but I was struck by the sense of never feeling afraid or freaked out by this - it was always a comforting sensation, a feeling that my little angel had found his territory, and was still watching over it - because it kept happening for the rest of the time I lived at that house (it was rented).

I like to think he's still watching over his territory, and that every so often whoever's living there now will wake up to the feeling of a cat clambering onto their mattress with a sense of comfort. I hope so. But I have no doubts any longer about the persistence of the spirit after death. (At least, not in cats. Lesser species, I'm not so sure.)