First of all, I must point out that I don't intend to write about each and every cat or other pet I've ever had in my life as that would take an eternity, and yes I not only have had cats, but birds and mice as well. I have loved all my pets that I've had, but some have been more memorable than others. Snoopy was just one of them...and yes, there were many more.
At the time Snoopy was to come into my life at age 15 back in 1970, my grandmother, mother and I had three cats. Babette, Biddy and Friskey. On November 7, 1970, I was on my way home from high school. Before I came home, I stopped by the "local hang-out" which at that time was a mom & pop type store, a combo soda fountain, magazine and cigarette shop. I would always stop by in that store on a nearly daily basis to see what new magazines were out. To this day I can even remember the coat I was wearing...it was a long length black velvet lined coat that I had bought at a Greenwich Village thrift shop.
So here I am in the store, perusing through the latest magazines, when in comes walking this magnificently, gleaming, dazzling white cat and guess who he went right over to? Yes, of course...me. He was gorgeous and to my mind he couldn't have been exactly a stray cat, since wouldn't a pure white stray cat be rather dingy looking? He wasn't exactly a kitten either, perhaps at least a year or two old already. All I knew, by looking at him, I wanted to take him home with me. I asked the store owner if I could use his phone so I could call up my mother who was at work. I wanted to tell her about this white cat and if it'd be all right to take him home. Well, of course she said it was all right.
I went over to the white cat, picked him up, and I noticed he had absolutely no resistance to my picking him up and holding him. Since there was a chill in the air on that November day, I unbuttoned my velvet coat, held him against me and wrapped the coat around him to keep him warm. The whole time walking the rest of the way home, which thankfully wasn't too far away from that store, he didn't struggle to get loose, but snuggled against me, almost sensing he was destined for a better life and not being on the streets.
I have no idea why I decided to call him Snoopy, since that name is associated with the beagle dog in the Peanuts comics, but it seemed to fit him. Snoopy was to live a very long life, longer than any other cat I was to have, near twenty years, but as I said, since he wasn't exactly a kitten when I brought him home, he may have been twenty-one or twenty-two when he went to Rainbow Bridge on August 10, 1990.
Now I could end the story here, but there's a tad bit more that one may find a bit fascinating and could be labeled perhaps a bit mystical or paranormal. I was to find out sometime later from my grandmother and mother, that my great-grandmother had always wanted a white cat, but never did. My great-grandmother, died on August 31, 1970 at the ripe old age of 98. To this day I can't help wonder if somehow, a part of my great-grandmother's "spirit" was in that cat, Snoopy. No, while I DO believe in reincarnation, I don't necessarily believe that a human's spirit or soul goes into an animal's soul, and yes I believe animals have souls too. I just find it an "odd" coincidence that only a short time after my great-grandmother died, here comes into my life, a white cat...the very same type of cat my great-grandmother always wanted.
And as if that isn't enough, here's more.
All total, I was raised by my great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. I felt and had a special bond with my great-grandmother, more than my grandmother or mother. That bond was to show itself in a "paranormal" way.
It was on the last two weeks of August of 1970, that my grandmother, mother and I were away on vacation in the Lancaster, PA area, hundreds of miles away from my great-grandmother who was still in her apartment. One night, late we were all in the hotel room watching Johnny Carson, when suddenly I became aware of the overpowering scent and of which, I recognized as the favorite cologne of my great-grandmother. I asked both my grandmother or mother if they could smell it, and of course, both looked at me as if I was daft. The next morning, we got a very early phone call. It was from a neighbor of my great-grandmother's who told us that my great-grandmother had to be hospitalized after a bad fall, she didn't make it and passed away. When did she die? August 31, 1990. When? The exact moment I smelled her scent hundreds of miles away in that hotel room. It doesn't end there.
Now my grandmother, mother and I are home. My great-grandmother's funeral had come and gone, some weeks had passed. Very late at night, or I should say in the early morning hours I was still awake reading. Both my grandmother and mother were sound asleep. I was engrossed with my reading when around 3:00 a.m. something compels me to look up from the book I was reading. Very clearly, at the entrance to the bedroom which I shared with my mother, was my great-grandmother's spirit. YES! I saw her! Then in a few moments her spirit vanished. I didn't freak out about this "appearance" to me, since while raised in a Christian upbringing, my great-grandmother, also Christian (Catholic to be exact) was "into" the metaphysical, mystical and paranormal herself, so I had been in a sense "weaned" from early childhood to acknowledge these "realms", therefore, for something like this to happen to me, that is her appearance to me just seemed rather "normal".
And then comes Snoopy, whom we later were to nickname "Grandma's cat", since as I have said earlier, my great-grandmother always wanted a white cat, but never had. And why did this white cat, a little more than a month since my great-grandmother's passing suddenly makes it's appearance out of the blue and then come directly to me that day on November 7, 1970? Coincidence? Who knows.
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