Breaking the news of my dad’s death to my staff wasn’t easy.

And even though my dad was with me in the office, I still got a lump in my throat as I warned my colleagues that I would need to go home for his funeral.

I felt both their sorrow and discomfort on hearing the news of my dad’s passing—there’s something awkward about hearing someone else’s bad news isn’t there.

But after offering their condolences, my small team and I settled into our tasks for the day.

Being busy helped the day go quickly and I soon forgot my dad’s presence, but ever so often, I would catch a glimpse of him and be reminded that he was still with us.

At the end of the day, my dad and I walked home together laughing and joking all the way.

That night I had the first of two very strange experiences.

I went to bed at my usual time…around 10.30pm and just as I always do, I closed my bedroom door—I can say with certainty that I did close my door.

But late into the night, I was suddenly jogged out of sleep.

I could gauge by the darkness of my room that it was maybe around 02.30 or 03.00am.

I found myself quite characteristically lying on my stomach.

Then unexpectedly in the darkness, I perceived something slowly opening my bedroom door. This should have terrified me, but strangely enough, it didn’t alarm me, but rather surprised and interested me.

I thought to myself…Ohh something’s opening my door—but how is that possible?

I wondered if I was I awake or asleep.

Then to my astonishment, I realized the thing entering my room was in fact a cat—even in the darkness and lying on my stomach, I could clearly perceive the creature was a cat.  

Can you imagine my shock as this thing—which had appeared out nowhere, slinked in then jumped onto my bed?

And just like cats do…it started meowing, purring and kneading my duvet with its claws.

It then started turning around in circles, while purring and kneading like it was preparing the bed before lying down.

I was both fascinated and excited to hear and perceive all this—but I wanted to SEE this animal—I wanted to SEE exactly what was going on.

So I tried lifting my upper body in order to turn my head back, so as to see behind me.

But I found myself paralysed and totally rooted to the bed.

I could neither lift nor turn my head to see what was happening just one foot behind me.

Anxiety shot through my body and I started struggling against myself to move.

I struggled with what felt like a ton weight on my back. It pinned me down, but at the same time, my body tingled with electricity that raced up and down my body.

The more my anxiety mounted, the more I struggled and the louder and faster the cats purring and kneading became. Soon my room was a frenzy of noise and activity with what now seemed like a hundred cats all purring at the same time.

I could hear and feel this entire happening—while I continued my struggle to move.

As the hysteria reached its crescendo, I screamed out my frustration…. Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!

And with this scream, everything stopped and my room fell silent.

When I awoke the next morning I didn’t immediately remember what had happened. But when the memory did come back after a few minutes, it all felt unreal somehow, so I did my best to convince myself it was all a dream.

It seemed all the more unreal because when I asked my dad if he had anything to do with what I experienced, he didn’t respond—so I took his silence as confirmation that it was just a bad dream.

So I pushed the whole incident to the back of my mind and continued getting ready for work.

When my dad and I got to the office, just as he had done the first day, he marched straight to the back window and started staring out.

He spent the whole the day quietly looking out, keeping out of the way.

In the evening when I got to my building, it was strange because I was the only one riding the lift up to my apartment.

I it was about 7pm and on most other evenings, the lobby of my building would be full of people waiting to take the lift up to their respective flats.

But on this evening, I rode the lift up the six flights to my floor without making a stop.

When the lift doors opened, I was stunned to see a ginger cat sitting directly outside the lift.

It sat there stock still, staring me straight in the face.

“Oh My God!!! What the hell does this mean?” I thought to myself, feeling more than a little bit freaked out.

I stared back at the cat with expectation—my heart pumping hard in my chest.

I didn’t dare breath, but instead waited for the cat to speak, or to give me some profound message or to morph into my dad or something crazy like that—but it just sat there quietly, just staring at me.

Eventually, just as cats do, it brought a paw to its face, meowed a few times, then licked and washed its face.

Now oblivious to me—it simply turned around and skulked off.

I stood there shocked for a moment, before following behind him, half of me still expecting it to do or say something.

But it just continued walking until it turned the corner out of view.

I kept following, but when I got to the corner a moment later, the cat was no-where to be seen. It had completely disappeared.

I walked further along the corridor convinced it would re-appear, but no—it was gone.

Feeling totally spooked I turned around and headed home.

When bedtime came, I couldn’t help feeling apprehensive about going to sleep, convinced something more was going to happen.

Fortunately for me that night nothing did and I got a good nights sleep.

It happened the following night.

It was Wednesday and just like before I went to bed with my bedroom door closed, but in the middle of the night once again something opened my door—and you guessed right! It was a cat.

This time I found myself sitting up in bed—had I fallen asleep sitting up?

And although my eyes were closed, I had full awareness

When the cat jumped onto my bed and started kneading the duvet, I felt a sense of elation because this time I knew I was perfectly positioned to SEE what was going on.

But as soon as I tried to open my eyes to see the cat, I found them firmly shut—I literally couldn’t open my eyes.

Panic quickly surged through me.

I wrestled and grappled with myself in an attempt to open my eyes and when struggling didn’t work, I tried to scream, but my mouth was sealed.

I’m not joking about this guys—I mean my mouth had totally sealed up.  

Terror gripped me and my arms flailed, so I attempted to steady myself using my bed and wall.

Then with my other hand I found my mouth and felt for where the opening should’ve been, but there was only tightly stretched skin.

It was exactly like a scene from The Matrix.

I can’t explain the hysteria that overtook me, as my breathing became short and sharp with panic.

I tried to scream again but the skin fastening my mouth wouldn’t give. I kept trying until the seal finally broke.

My mouth separated into long strands of goo like plasticine.

Then the sound of my own scream—an un-human squall, quite unbelievable to my own ears pierced the air.

Finally, this scream stopped the nightmare.

I woke up the next morning knowing this time it wasn’t a dream.

But what did it all mean? Why had I been given these terrifying experiences?

Again when I asked my dad if he was responsible, he fell silent, so I realized I’d have to figure it out for myself.

During the whole day at work I contemplated the two experiences and tried to come to a logical explanation.

The answers finally came later that evening.

Thursday was the first of my two weekly Pilates classes. That evening with my dad in tow, the class was very funny.  

My dad was so impressed that I was a Pilate’s teacher and he couldn’t believe some of the positions I got into, so whenever I demonstrated a new position I would hear him say

“Wow Jacq! Wow is that you, is that really you?”

His comments during every move were so funny that I would often burst out laughing, which made my students ask, “What’s so funny?”

I would just say “Nothing, nothing” and continue.

In the taxi home after class, the meaning of my two experiences came to me.

I realised the experiences were trying to tell me to trust my other senses and not to only rely on what I could see with my physical eyes.

I recognised that in both experiences, although my eyes were closed, I could still see, hear and feel, so why weren’t these senses enough for me to believe what was happening? 

Was it only through seeing with my physical eyes that I would believe?

Was seeing the only way to know or trust that an experience is real?

The appearance of the physical cat outside the lift in my building was to help me understand that I hadn’t dreamed or imagined the previous nights events.

Many of us believe that “Seeing is believing” But I now understand it’s not only through our physical eyes that we see. We can learn to see with our other senses too.

On Friday morning when I awoke my dad was no longer with me.

He left just as quietly as he’d come. I knew he wasn’t with me anymore because the energy in my room had changed.

And when I called out to him, only the silence responded.

The time my dad spent with me helped me understand that death isn’t as final as we may believe. That when we leave our physical earth bodies, we simply transition into another frequency—A frequency that most of us cannot see with our physical eyes.

My dad gave me two important gifts that I’m grateful for—to trust my intuition and to believe what I feel.

Today, I continue to develop my connection to spirit through my work as a medium. When I give auric or spirit readings, I rely not on what I can see with my physical eyes but on what I feel.

Death is simply a transition because as Uri Geller says our souls cannot be destroyed, we simply come back to earth to learn more lessons.

Contact me at Jacqueline@calloftheinnervoice.com if you feel interested in a reading.