Smell like mom's spirit

I wrote this bit on my personal blog.  Since it's a cultural thing, I think I should share it here too.  Hope you don't mind the double billing.  :)

"Mom was in my dream last night," my older brother said over lunch with the aunties, three of my mom's best-est friends.  "She was sitting at a bus stop.  I drove by and I had to do a double take: 'Wait a sec.  That was mom!'"

Aunty Sida said, "Oh yeah, that is totally a dream.  Noi NEVER took the bus."

For superstitious Thais, there is a difference between seeing someone in your dream and having them visiting you in your dream.  Different groups believe in different ways the dead pay a visit.

According to true Buddhist belief, mom should go straight to wherever she would be, in the heavens, waiting to be reborn.  But some Thais believe the spirit comes back to visit the family on the third night.  Some said at the day of the cremation.  And some said after the remains are scattered.  

The aunties asked us if mom came to us that morning when she passed away.  One said she woke up around that time just thinking about my mom long before the other aunty called her.  One said that she kept teasing mom about not giving her a smile in the last few days and mom came to her that morning in a dream and said, "Here I am!  I'm smiling now!"

The rest of the time, we think mom is already up on the heavens, watching over us, dropping little hints here and there that she's there.

On the day of the cremation ceremony, it was stifling hot.  I mean, I looked and felt like I had just came out of the pool and put my clothes on.  Although during our procession around the crematorium, the sun was covered by clouds.  Sure, the cloud and the stifling heat were signs of the rain to come.  But rain was so far away. 

Oddly enough, once the guests start to arrive, a cool breeze picked up and it began to sprinkle, light enough that you wouldn't get wet, but heavy enough to cool off the entire area, making the evening pleasant.  By the time we were ready to have honored guests up on the crematorium to begin the ceremony, the rain stopped completely so nobody got wet going from the seating area.  

Oh, and did I mention that the parting gifts were umbrellas?   

It was speculated of course that my mom, ever the Hostess with the Most-est, was making sure everyone was comfortable through the ordeal by working with the weather gods. 

Also, mom was never the sun-and-sea kind of person.  She was sensitive to the sun and couldn't swim.  And, like mother like daughter, she got motion sick easily too.  Since we're smack dab in the middle of monsoon season, we braced for choppy waters where we were going to scatter her ashes.  But nope.  The sea was calm.  Sky blue.  Beautiful day at the beach.

Mom was a scaredty cat.  She was afraid of most things: the water (because she couldn't swim), geckos (well I hate them jingjoks too!), blood, scary movies, action movies, people getting hurt, cockroaches, cats, big dogs, you name it!  I believe that she hasn't come to "visit" us because she didn't want to scare us.  My brother believes that with mom being afraid of ghosts, she is probably scared of herself.

But I think she may have visited me early this morning.  The aunties seemed to think so.

I woke up at 5 till 4 a.m. with a start.  I felt the bed shook...well...more like a low rumble, the way a low level earthquake feels.  I started to think that I was dreaming and besides, if it was an earthquake, I should probably get to the door jamb.  I went to open the door, stood underneath it and held the frame.  It rumbled there too.  But it could be my A/C doing the vibrating, so I touched the floor outside the bedroom, and that was rumbling.  I didn't hear any truck or anything outside.  I stood there for a few more moments and everything stopped. 

I went back to bed and turned on the TV perhaps to catch the news about a big quake somewhere else that could've shaken Bangkok like what happened a few months ago.   Nothing on CNN or BBC.  Local news wasn't really breaking news but a guy going over today's newspapers.  (Yeah, I know.  There are a lot of those "news" shows in the morning here.)  After another half hour or so, I went back to sleep.

I asked if anyone else felt the earthquake last night.  My brother, of all people, should have felt it because his room is on the 4th floor.  Nope.  Nothing.  Both he and dad said if there was an earthquake, it would've been on the news.

I checked the US geological survey against the one in the UK and the closest quake was in the far end of Indonesia.  No way would I have felt that here.

The aunties conclude that it was mom visiting me.  My dad and brother think I sleepwalked--after all, it is a family trait from mom.  I still think it was a mild earthquake that may not have registered on the scale.  I just happened to be awake at the right moment.

Or something like that.