Ghost

I guess I'll include this little anecdote since I write about my dreams from time to time.

It all started with talk about what the newly deceased do during the mourning period, especially around burial time. The adults (aka. aunts and uncles) were discussing things that needed to be done, superstitions such as making sure the rice storage was full so that grandma would be comforted that her survivors would be well fed, and the tv turning on randomly at night so that she could watch tv just like she had done while living, which meant that we should go to bed early. There were also issues about going vegetarian during this mourning period and that probably has to do with the Buddhist notion that the spirits of the animals you consume will return to consume you in your passing. Whether Buddhism believes in spirits is not really the question, as the word can be broadened to encompass the guilt of taking the life of a conscious living being. The idea behind burial rites, atleast as far as Buddhism goes (and atleast as far as my knowledge and beliefs go) is that it is done to guide the newly departed into the afterlife and hopefully into a better position to achieve enlightenment. As such, the living are to offer prayers, and since I have nothing better to do during the sutras, make myself as buddha-like as possible to set a guidepost for the dead. Lastly (or firstly), the rites are for the living, so that we know her affairs are squared away and as a time of healing and to allow the grief to flow.

Anyways, one little aside was when I changed turned on the wii because I was really bored, and left the room to go retrieve the remotes that were being charged elsewhere. My uncle freaked out a bit when he noticed that the game had been turned on and there was no one in the room.

Fast-forward to nightfall. Earlier I had partaken in breaking the vegetarian diet with a few of my cousins, and was chatting with the cousin I was sharing that side of the house with (houses in Arizona are so huge now that one normal sized family can't live in it). We stayed up late, and when we decided to turn in, my cousin claims the tv was turned off before he could hit the power button on the remote. I figured he was trying to screw with my mind so I paid it no attention.

One of the few things that got me emotional at the funeral service was the thought that nature had finally righted itself. While I'm sure its a rather common occurrence, its not really right for a parent to outlive their children, which was the case for my mother. So the thought that my grandmother would finally be joining my mother in the afterlife hit me harder than actually losing my grandmother. Death is a fact of life, it happens sooner or later, expectedly and unexpectedly. If there were to be something more certain than change, it would be that our time on this planet is limited. Most of you know that I am a pretty logical person (with a healthy spread of irrational streaks), and since I've been living with the shadow of a departed loved one since a relatively early age, I try not to take interactions with people for granted, especially when it comes to the elderly. Granted I usually don't have much to say since I am not on good talking terms with any of my grandparents (I just don't see them often enough). So when it comes time for the rights of death to be played, I can't find it in me to become that emotional because I know that their memory will always live on in their survivors and that death can bring about great release from the suffering and burden of living.

So it was with these kinds of thoughts that I drifted off to sleep. I forget what I was dreaming about, but it was a pretty vivid one, as I had been dreaming pretty often as of late. In retrospect, I think it was so vivid there was actually dialogue (which doesn't happen very often in my dreams). After some time though, my attention was brought back to my current state. Whether I was awake or not I'm not sure, it was the kind of half conscious awareness of my surroundings that I sometimes get while I'm sleeping. What happened afterwards was creepy/scary because I felt the bed move and then the area right over my abdomen (stomach) get cold. It was the type of moist cold that I guess people might associate with the living dead... ha ha. I tried to bear it as long as possible because for one thing, I was scared, and the other thing if it was grandma I just wanted her to do whatever she needed to do and move on. My more egocentric side thought about how I might remind her of her daughter. I don't know. The feeling got so creepy after awhile though that I started struggling and after some effort, I forced myself fully awake and then there was nothing. It was, seemingly, all a dream. Strangely enough though, I heard my cousin moaning from the next room, as if he were having a nightmare too. I checked the time, 4:40 ish after making up the time difference from California time. Those of you that know, 4 is synonymous with death in Chinese. I'm pretty sure I smirked in the dark and thought... That's interesting... and went back to sleep.

I worked up the courage to ask my cousin later that day to see if he had a nightmare that night. He didn't remember anything. We performed my grandmother's last rites that day.