Is there anybody out there?

Is there life after death? My logical side says probably not but my romantic side says maybe. I remember when my father died. I was lying in my room alone crying, asking my father to some give kind of sign. The phone began ringing. I picked it up and there was this bizarre sound of wind - loud whooshing wind. It startled me so that I hung up the phone. It continued to ring, picked it up again, sound still there.

And then there’s Max. When Bryan and I were first together, we went to this ranch in the hills outside of Los Angeles to adopt a black cat we named Spyder. A Siamese/Burmese mix, Spyder immediately became our child. While he tolerated me, he attached himself to Bryan, riding around on Bryan’s shoulders, sleeping on Bryan’s knees.

We have endless cat stories about Spyder’s antics - how he killed Andy’s prized fish, Jaws; how we could leave for a couple of days on vacation and hide packets of Tender Viddles around the house and he would find them, open them with his teeth, and help himself to dinner; how he terrified veterinarians due to his large size and jungle cat behavior (he once had a vet cornered in an office with a needle hanging out of his side because he growled and freed himself from the vet and two assistants who tried to restrain him). He slept between us with his head on the pillow, front paw stretched around us - we turned over, he turned with us. A Siamese cat named Bo would join the family, but Spyder was Bryan’s cat. After 13 years of love and companionship, Spyder succumbed to cancer and Bryan lost his best friend.

An Egyptian Mau named Tut would join our family a few years later, but no cat could take Spyder’s place, until Max. One very hot day, I went to a meeting in the Valley. As I approached the building, this black cat was drinking melted ice out of a broken Styrofoam cup. He rubbed his thin and dirty body against my legs and began this loud meowing. People in the building told me he was abandoned. I finished my meeting and left to find this cat waiting for me. He followed me to my car, meowing louder and louder. He tried to get in my car, but I was afraid to bring him home to our other two cats.

When Bryan got home, I told him about the black cat. Determined to find him, Bryan got in his car and went to the building (one hour away from our home). No black cat to be found. Bryan did this for three days in a row, sitting in the hot sun for hours. A few more days passed and Bryan convinced me to stop by the building on my way back from LA. There was the cat, waiting patiently. He jumped in my car, I took him home, and he walked into the house like he knew the place. And my cats knew him. He ran to our bed and made himself comfortable. He slept between us like Spyder, and the similarities were bizarre. Max would die two years later of cancer. This was another blow to us because we had once again connected on some cosmic level with Max.

A year had passed after Max’s death when I had this strange thought while driving to stop at the animal shelter. I walked in to find this black cat meowing at the top of his lungs for my attention. The "A" on his cage meant his time was up, he would be put to sleep the next day. I paid my $5 and took him home. Same story. Walks in the house like he knows the place, the cats know him, he attaches himself to Bryan in a day. We named him Siddartha to signify the reincarnation of Spyder.

As I look at Sid this morning, lying on Bryan’s knees, looking just like Spyder, I think about reincarnation. Maybe there is something more to this life than we comprehend. Maybe our soul lives on. Maybe I’m trying to find comfort in my mother’s pending death. For now, I’ll fill myself with hope that someday I’ll see her again.