I moved to Perth after getting married in 2006. My husband is Aussie but I met him in Singapore at Harry’s Bar. He proposed about a year and a half later, around the Chinese New Year period, and I said yes. When we were dating, he met my parents a few times, but I did not meet his family. This is an important point and you will see why later.
On the third day of Chinese New Year, we flew over to Perth to break the news to his parents. Initially I suggested we should stay at the hotel but my in-laws would have none of it. They cleared out one of their rooms that had been used as a store for us. At that time I didn’t know that the room belonged to my hubby’s grandfather. That night I had a dream of a soldier standing over my bed and smiling at me. He placed a hand on my tummy and I felt warmness radiating from within me. I didn’t think much of it after my first night dreaming of this but by the fourth time I dreamt of it, it became too much of a recurring incident that I couldn't keep mum about it. When I told my hubby about the soldier, I had half expected him to pop-poop my experience. He didn’t seem like the superstitious type so I didn’t know what to expect, but certainly not in the way he had reacted. At first he appeared startled, then he smiled and called for his father. I was like - hey, wait, what was going on? When his dad came into the room, my hubby requested for me to repeat my story and describe what I saw. After I did that, they excitedly called for his mother and made me tell my story for the third time. Then they all hugged me and said it seemed as if his granddad was agreeing to the union, just like them. They went to one of the boxes in the room to retrieve an old black and white photo of a soldier who fitted my description somewhat. But to be fair, the photo and my vision were not quite the same lah. I had seen an older version of the soldier. In the photo, the soldier was younger but the smile was unmistakable. A few months later, I got pregnant. The wedding date had to be bumped up. Thankfully both families were supportive. I was able to hide my baby bump during the wedding but felt regretful that I still looked bloated in all the photos. Anyway, the baby was born a couple of months after the wedding. When the hubby looked at our son, he was more than convinced it was a reincarnation of his grandfather. In fact he was so convinced that he named our son Gary, after his grandfather. Grandfather had participated in some war and died by a bayonet stab wound that had gotten infected. My son has a birthmark on his side, apparently at the same spot where Gary Sr. was stabbed. Our daughter arrived a few years later but she is thankfully not some dead relative. She’s called Marylene. I’d be damned if I had to name her after my hubby’s grandmother, Nancy. |
AuthorConfession Journal is a collection of stories and reviews submitted by the public. Topics
All
|