by Tanya...
My grandmother seems to be experiencing some type of activity in her household. She's not senile; she actually has all of her wits about her. She is convinced it is our recently deceased pet ferret, "Ozzy." Basically, he used to have the run of the house and was best buddies with our cat. (I used to live with my grandmother but moved out a couple years ago. The ferret was actually my pet, and I left him there with my grandmother, because I didn't want to uproot him from where he lived his whole life, seperate him from the cat, etc. in his senior years.)
The activity she is experiencing is her cat's still exhibiting the same behavior he did when Ozzy was alive. He used to run to his food dish and wait for Ozzy to join him to eat before starting to eat. He still does this, and looks up the hall as if watching for him, then follows with his eyes as if something is coming down the hall. He, then, begins to eat. He also seems to follow "something" around the house with his eyes, and then gets frisky and acts as if he is playing with something that isn't there.
It was a regular occurrence, when Ozzy was alive, for both of them to play together. This is a very overweight cat that never played on his own unless initiated by Ozzy. In a nut shell, the cat is acting like Ozzy is still there.
My grandmother also claims that every night, she feels Ozzy climbing around under the covers at her feet in the bed. (This was another normal and nightly occurance when the ferret was alive.) She actually sleeps in the bedroom that I shared with Ozzy. He would climb into bed with me every night and curl up at my feet to sleep. She said she has even gone to the extremes of leaving her light on at night, looking down at her feet when she feels something crawling around.
The covers do not move, but she can still feel him. Also, she stripped the bed and flipped the mattress over, because at first she thought it was some animal, like a mouse or something, doing it. She is so convinced that it is him, that she left a couple of his toys out to see if he would move them; but they haven't moved. She is not scared or bothered by this.
I had to have Ozzy put to sleep because he got very ill and was suffering. We buried him next to my grandmother's home.