I live on land and in a house filled with ghosts and specters. I sleep in the room in which my great-grandfather drew his last breath and where his children and grandchildren stayed up to sit with his body the night before his funeral. Family legend says he had an argument with the pastor at the Baptist church up the road and forbade his wife and children to hold his funeral there. As a result, pictures from his service hang on my wall. They held it under a large oak tree that once stood in my front yard, complete with rows of chairs facing his casket. In the evenings, sometimes the draft shifts in the chimney in my room enough to bring hints of old fires, long-spent cigarettes, and slightly sweet shadows of pipe tobacco.

Walking through the pasture in the summer brings back my great aunt, dressed in her calico bonnet and skirt, longsleeved denim shirt, and apron. She lived in town but we brought her home every July to the fields of her youth to pick blackberries for “putting up” as jelly and baking into cobblers. The green Japanese beetles, sometimes twice the size of the berries, buzzed around our heads, creating an eerie yet irresistible buzz. I found them both beautiful and horrid; their iridescence made the stickiness of their legs bearable.

Growing up with a cemetery in the middle of your farm teaches you not to fear ghosts. That’s not to say I relished trekking into the basement alone or down the long hallway toward the uninhabited guest room. Though not afraid, I did and do not care for the tingling, crackling, creeping electricity that crawls from my rear to the base of my neck that comes from venturing forth alone into darkened corners.

I favor the ghosts of the animals that show up time and again. Sometimes I walk into the basement and look up at the back door to see a vision of Robin, a black Angus heifer, poking her head inside. We raised her on a bottle in the barn as a calf when her mother died giving birth to her. She grew a bit too familiar with the house and us and would push through the fences of the pasture to walk up the hill and pay us a neighborly visit.

The shadow of the greatest dog who ever lived, despite what you might believe to the contrary, occasionally darts through the tall grass ahead of me on my strolls. She found us when we first moved into the house my parents built. She and I being puppies at the time of our meeting, we grew up together, and she became our great protector. Twice, she survived rattlesnake bites, determined to strike them before they could come close enough to strike us. She looked like a small German Shepherd crossed with a typical coyote and carried a fierce and tender heart within her.

Last Friday, a welcome specter appeared on my front porch in the shape of a tiny calico cat. My first, and to date favorite, cat was mottled tabby orange, brown, black, and white. She could catch any mouse, mole, or lizard who dared come within twenty yards of our front door. We called her Miss Belle, she being a lady deserving of a formal name. The poor cat suffered under my affection as a small child as I chased, caught, and squeezed her within an inch of her life daily.

This Friday I stepped out on my porch and found her sitting on my multicolored pew. Only she has more orange than brown these days and appears even smaller than forty-plus years ago. She meowed and hopped down to rub against my leg, letting me know she was not mere memory but flesh and bone. I reached down to pet this new addition to the family, surprised by her friendliness and ease. She behaved as though she waited there every morning for treats or a bowl of milk.

I told myself I didn’t want another cat but felt bad enough for the small thing that I brought her a bowl of kibble. I assumed she was a juvenile kitty, really more of a glorified kitten. I figured a snack would do her good, and maybe she would eat then return to her litter or one of the small gangs of feral cats on our street. The following day, she sat waiting for me on the doormat. That evening, she came to sleep with me inside, away from the leer of the large tom cats that yeowl and keep me awake at night.

By Sunday, I had christened her “Mary Oliver” for her penchant for sitting on my keyboard as I write, contributing her far superior lines of verse to my meager offering. The nikcnaming has begun in variations of Olive, Ollie, and Olieke. She doesn’t seem to mind as long as I rub her belly and keep her bowl filled. She does like to follow me into the bathroom and knocks at the door when I leave her outside, something I thought I had long since escaped when my children outgrew their clingy ways.

In our lifetimes, we meet the same ghosts of people we have loved time and again. The person you meet at your new job carries shadows of our Uncle Fred. That person new to church covers their mouth when they giggle in a way that reminds you of Aunt Eula. The new girlfriend wears perfume that calls up the love of an old friend, and your jogging buddy tells dirty jokes that would have made even your grandfather blush. They all come back to visit repeatedly in the guise of another person, who may become just as dear to us in the end.

We often say that “goodbye isn’t forever” but just as often miss how the departed appear in small and wonderful ways. I never imagined having another tiny calico kitty, having seen only one other since Miss Belle died. But here I am, snuggling with her specter, sent to me through the cat distribution system to bring back marvelous memories while making new ones.