Explore Haunted Ohio: Click on a county below to find your local Ohio ghost stories!

Ghostly Gray Cat

 

The Legend:

A Real Ghost Story-Grays the Cat

A Real Ghost Story-GRAYS-As told by Mimi -Touch the Earth Adventures

 

Grays… they are just cats of gray, nothing like the dogs and horses of my lifetime of trail rides and happy hikes.  A cat can’t hike the hills nor climb the cliffs.  I never had a cat in all my fifty years of animal friends. But, I had one child who shared the journeys of adventures.

 

There came the day when my Daughter left home. Her parting words of wisdom were,  “Mom these dogs and horses are old now and will soon die and you will be completely alone. What will you do?”  I was stunned to hear the reality grasp my heart.  I knew I could not have more animals, as I had already gone through too much pain all my life with their deaths.   Now, I am older and I cannot think about my own death and leaving them behind.  I thought but did not speak for some time.

 

It was soon after her question though that an answer came to me.  I’ll bring happiness and good to other animals and people. They won’t be mine but I will be good to them.  My answer was tested that Fall.

 

A few days after burying the last dog and horse the gray arrived at my door.  She was hungry, sad, alone and terrified.  I invited her in to share some milk.  I knew I would find her a home.  But, she was an afflicted cat who obviously had been thrown away.  Thus, no home to be found for the afflicted one of gray.  Her tail was only a stub and she purred without ceasing to be beside my November fire.  Then after the long winter she was failing and I took her to the vet where she parted from this realm of earth to travel on.  She gave me a tuft of her fur to keep, which I slipped into the pocket of my fleece vest.  My friend, Ed, came that evening to help me bury my gray. I reached into my pocket to retrieve a bandana to dry more tears.  I had forgotten the fur was there. I managed to get all the fur stuck over my entire face so I left it there that night.

 

The next day I knew that something was different and would always be different in my life now.  I heard the mystic sound of the hawk overhead and watched it circle lower and lower before swooping high again.  I gathered up the blanket of the Purring One.  I planned to go out to the earth and burn it.  Watching the smoke lift would be my way celebrate her life in a ceremony.  As I stood up with her blanket in my arms, I was stunned … the afflicted gray ran in front of my doorway into the edge of the woods. I knew it was her… the gray with the stub of a tail.  I called Ed to give him the news that she had come back to life.  He informed me that was impossible.  “How can it be impossible when I had just seen her,” I questioned him.  So, for days upon weeks, upon months it kept happening.  She would appear only to disappear again into the woods.  Her green green eyes piercing into me as she looked at me before disappearing.

 

Fall was upon us now and her appearances and disappearances kept up.  My Daughter was coming back for a visit and I knew I could not tell her any of these things about the gray which had happened or Jenny would worry about me (as she often does.) 

 

As soon as Jenny arrived, we set out for our hike as we always did in October.  We hiked around the rim trail of Conkle's Hollow to soak in the color.  We sat on the edge of the high precipice and marveled at the 300 million-year-old rocks we felt and touched.  We always felt the power of earth when we hiked there together over all the many years.  We sat and shared stories of our current lives and events since we had last seen each other.

 

She asked if I were lonely with her gone and the dogs and horses gone.  I thought maybe I should tell her about the gray purring one but just as I started to speak I felt a paw touch my leg.  There appeared to us the gray with the stunning green eyes. Without a doubt I heard the gray speak… a very clear hewwo.  My Daughter was there to confirm it was reality we were experiencing. But how could this be???  I asked the gray for a name I could call her.  Without hesitation the second paw came up onto my lap and the green eyes looked into my eyes and the gray spoke and said, “ WAWA ONE WHO KNOWS.” Her eyes looked deep into mine with a look of love. And again she vanished quickly.

 

Jenny and I hiked on down from the rim of Conkle's in a silence as deep as the gorge.  The two of us were in a state of profound awe.  Later that week she left Ohio to return to South Carolina changed by the experience as only the mysterious can change you. 

 

October finished painting her beauty over the Hocking Hills and into my life.   To celebrate the end of October and glory in the last color, I set out on a hike to Airplane Rock. Suddenly I realized it was Halloween evening.  It was good to be out on the rock and watch the stars appear as the night grew.  I thought of my hike to Conkle's Hollow and the mystery of the gray.  It seemed as clear to me now, as the stars, that

My vision was about being good to animals and people .  I knew that was my path.  I realized that there are times, places and things where there is no explanation.  Only the spirits understand.

 

That night, as I stood on the ancient sandstone boulder called Airplane Rock that had been under the sea millions of years ago, I felt close to the sky. The stars stretched out around me.  It was then that I saw many spirits traveling across the hemlock valley below me and through the shimmering starlit sky with me, I longed to know what they know.  I know in my heart that I shall return to Airplane Rock every Halloween to be with the SPIRITS WHO KNOW.

 

By Mimi

Touch the Earth Adventures