The visitations began exactly a week after her husband’s death. ‘Were you frightened?’ I asked X. ‘No of course not,’ she said. She was in bed when she suddenly felt his presence in the room. In the darkness, relieved only by the faint light of the moon penetrating the window curtains, she was aware of some movement, as of someone sitting down on the cane chair at the end of the room, facing her bed. ‘Hello, Tong,’ she said. ‘Is it you?’ In the morning, she looked at the chair, and noticed that the two small embroidered decorative cushions usually placed on the seat had been removed and placed on the floor. ‘Now how would you explain that?’ she exclaimed.

In his second visit, which also took place about three in the morning (‘ The doctor told me he died at about three ‘), she again felt his presence This time there was also the smell of the embrocation oil she had been rubbing on his legs in his last days. ‘It was a special oil that my aunt had brought from Indonesia, with a distinct, pungent smell.’ Again, she sat up in bed and said, ‘Is it you, Tong? If it is, give me a sign’. The idea for a reassuring sign had come from one of her friends who had requested proof of presence from her late father, and got it promptly. ‘Then the strangest thing happened,’ X said, her eyes dilated with wonder. ‘I heard a slight tapping sound on the window. It was gone in a second.’

The visitations from Y’s mother-in-law had not brought comfort to Y and her family. The old lady had died an unhappy death, the bitterness on her face as she lay in her coffin accentuated rather than softened by the mortician’s careful application of powder and rouge. The death had been caused by a botched operation in a private hospital ; the family was planning to sue the hospital even as the funeral preparations were being made.

Y told me her mother-in-law had appeared to her several times in her dreams, over the course of a year, always in an agitated state. In one she was wearing a long white dress, her hair disheveled, her nails dirty, evidence of her extremely distressed state, as in life she had been a very neat old woman, always meticulously coiffed and manicured. But after the family had successfully sued the hospital and been compensated, the dreams changed. In one, Y’s sister-in-law saw her, dressed in her favourite red silk blouse and grey pants, smiling and nodding all the time. ‘That was her sign to all of us that she is now satisfied and can rest in peace,’ said Y.

Z’s father who died peacefully in his sleep, also gave signs of his presence. ‘My father loved nature,’ said Z. ‘So every time I am in the Botanic Gardens which he visited regularly, I would say, ‘Pa, this is your favourite place; I’m sure you’re here with me now’, and guess what? I would instantly get a sign. A little bird would appear from nowhere and hop to my feet, a butterfly would come fluttering and sit on my arm. Once I saw a lizard dart by, exactly the same kind, with a sort of sharp pointy crest on its head, that Pa had once pointed out to me. It’s uncanny, I tell you! Now, you skeptic, do you believe in ghosts?’

And I would, as I did with X and Y when they confronted me with the same challenge, say apologetically, ‘I wish I did.’ For the continuity of contact by a loved one from beyond the grave, would make the loss that much more bearable.

---

About Vignettes...

A continuing flow of little, readable pieces that will constitute what I feel is an important 'legacy of values' to leave behind. Read more about Vignettes...