On April 17th 2000 (remember that), my cat Tigger died at 2:30 pm. I didn’t find out until that night, but it was the holidays so I was home alone. And I remember checking the clock at around 2:30 pm because it was in the middle of Oprah. Anyway, I remember it because I noticed that there was a cat outside, walking down the driveway next-door. They don’t have any pets, so this was really weird. Plus, my Mum later told me that at 2:30 pm she had glanced up at her screensaver on her computer at work, and had seen a tiny white flashing square on the top left-hand side of that ‘flying past stars’ screensaver.
So anyway, once I found out Tigger had died, I was obviously overcome with grief. So I decided to dedicate a song I was currently learning on the piano. It was called ‘Dreams to Dream’ by Linda Ronstadt and it was from the album ‘An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West’. So I finished learning the song and then went crazy trying to find the album. I couldn’t find it ANYWHERE. In the WORLD. Every website I went to said it was not available any more. After all, at the time it was a 9-year-old album, not very popular either. But every time I went into a record store, I’d flick through the A’s under Soundtrack just in case. I did this every single time, and soon it became second nature to me, I didn’t even realise I was doing it.
One day, not too long after Tigger died, I had that ‘farewell’ dream people always talk about. It was Tigger and me, out the back of our house, and I bent down and pet him. I still remember stroking the hair down his back. Then, he trotted off towards the side of my house, but being a dream the house wasn’t there any more. Instead, there was like a gold mining area, with people scoping the rivers for gold, and water-mills nearby, etc. I woke up and thought “Weird…” but then shrugged it off, because dreams are always weird to me.
On April the 17th 2001, I went with a friend to see a movie, about an hour’s drive away from my home. We had some time to kill beforehand, so we went looking around, and we wound up in a record store. Naturally, I went for the A’s under Soundtrack, but this time… I found it. I found the album I had been looking for madly all this time, which had Tigger’s song on it. I was so at peace that day and still sort of am, because the odds of finding that album not just ever, but exactly one year after his death, was amazing. I always thought that maybe I was guided to it. Then, I realised I probably was. The town I found it in was an old gold-digging place from the 1800s! Like where Tigger was walking to in my dream.
That’s weird, right? Thought you’d like to know my story.
Oh, and on one occasion I was sure I felt him press up against me when I was in bed. I felt something alright, and I told myself: “You’re awake, you’re awake, you ARE awake…” because in all the movies later on they wonder if they were awake or not.