By José Dominguez, February 4, 2020 — Aunt Julia, my mother’s sister, used to repeat a popular Mexican saying: “Yo ni en la paz de los sepulcros creo” meaning in English “I do not even believe in the peace of the tombs,” claiming that death is not a guarantee of peace or that some deaths have restless souls. My mother, as a traditional Catholic, explained to me: “Ghosts and spirits are souls visiting the living world asking for prayers and if we encounter one spirit in our path, the only thing to do is to pray so the soul will continue the transit from the Purgatory to Heaven.”
My father, as a Freemason, thought very differently. He was an atheist and when he perceived our hesitation about the ghost-spirit existence he got angry and told us,“I’m ignorant because I didn’t receive the education that I always long[ed] for; It’s a pity that you, after having so much education, dare to believe in stories proper to ignorant people.” Maria, my late wife, [being the kind of] confrontative person she was, clearly told me, “If you face an unexplainable condition and you assume a spirit is involved, you have to confront the spirit and establish communication to know exactly what is the purpose of its presence.” Beatriz, my daughter, accepts totally the spiritual presence and thinks that there are some people with the special gift to interact with the world of the alive and the world of the spirits.
Otherwise, I prefer to think that with my death my energy will be transformed; I don’t know for sure in what dimension or area of the universe my transmuted energy is going to end. I don’t know if I will end as an infinitesimal part of a star or a breeze traveling in the cosmos. My story is about something that happened to me and it unfolds like this.
As I have described in previous essays my mother lived her last years with my family in our house. Even when she improved drastically her modus vivendi, the memories of happy old times haunted her each day, each moment. Remarkably, at 90 years old she was a healthy person. In reality, we didn’t experience her physical and mental deterioration until some months before she died. She developed a fear tendency. She believed she was deserted by us, especially at night. Sometimes she began screaming for help, because, supposedly, some thief was trying to enter through the window. Some other times she initiated a search in all our rooms looking for us shouting, “You left me alone, you [have] forsaken me!” At the end, my family and I began to sleep less because of [these] abandonment scenes. After her last, sudden and mortal disease at the age of 94, in a way, our house became peaceful — especially by night.
Two days after her death I was resting, recovering from my sleepless nights, when I suddenly heard clearly my mother’s voice yelling. Her pleading and anguished voice loudly repeated the same exclamation: “Where are you? Pepe! Where is everybody? Why did you forsake me?” I could not accept what I was hearing. Shocked by the appearance of her voice I was totally confused. I was thinking about the rest of my family that was trying to sleep. But that voice, those screams were not helping at all. I raised myself and spoke loudly with firm voice: “Mother, please, we love you but you have to rest in peace. You are death. You are now resting in peace. Let us have our peaceful rest and go where you belong … go where you belong … we love you but … please go.” The cry stopped and since then I never again heard nothing or imagined to hear nothing about my mother’s forsaken plea. For sure all was a dream but a vivid one, the only one of that kind I ever had in my long life.
According to Aunt Julia’s saying, my mother wa not in peace. Maria actually told me “You did the right thing.” My mother perhaps, according to her convictions, was waiting for my prayers to leave the Purgatory. My father, sententious, would say: “You are such an educated ignorant [person].” Beatriz told me Grandma “Did a visit to you, she wants to be in touch,” and I tell you … if after my death you, my reader, happen to honor my memory [by] having a dream of my image, don’t worry. My image is not registered. You can reproduce it freely. If you happen to believe that my image is a spirit or a ghost, sorry it was not my intention.