This is a story about premonitions of some sort. Or rather, two stories.
The first story took place when I was much younger and still lived with my parents in the house I grew up in.
One night, I woke up in the middle of the night and there was a woman, sitting at the foot of my bed, in a red sleeping gown. She looked like one of my aunts. She was smiling at me. Oh, cool, Aunt M is visiting, I thought, drowsily. I closed my eyes to go back to sleep, but my brain just had to alert me that Aunt M is, in fact, not currently visiting. A feeling of terror overtook me and I opened my eyes, wide. I was alone in the room. I don't remember if I managed to go back to sleep that night.
I don't know how much time had passed since then, but I went to visit Aunt M for a couple of nights. She lived a 4-hour train ride away from us. When I was back home, my mom looked extremely happy to see me. Turns out, while I was away, there was an incident. You see, my bedroom was located right below the attic area where we stored all sorts of things we weren't using, including furniture. One of the nights I was at Aunt M's, somehow a teak coffee table managed to break through the ceiling and fell right on top of my bed. Had I been home, it would've likely killed me.
The second story took place 22 years ago, on the day my mom died. Please stop reading if stories about death is a trigger to you.
It was early in the morning, just before dawn. I was awake. I had been having trouble sleeping ever since my mom's health took a turn and she had to be hospitalized. I heard knocks on my window, the way my mom would knock when she was tending the plants outside my window and saw me inside. I looked out the window and saw no one. I instantly thought the worst. Mom must've left us forever, I just knew it. I started crying. But then one of my brothers, who'd spent the night with Mom at the hospital, called, saying Mom seemed better today, and that she'd like to see me and my other brother.
When we got to the hospital, I saw that she did look better. She was eating and drinking and being chatty. But later, when my mom and I were alone, she told me that her parents—who had been dead for years—were in the room with us. She kept making this gesture with her hand, like she was telling them to wait, and not to take her away yet. But then, suddenly, without warning, she stopped breathing. She was gone for good.
My mom and I had a very strong bond. I know it sounds stupid and logically impossible, but I still believe that, somehow, it was her who was knocking on my bedroom window that morning. It had been her way to say hi to me, and I can't see why it couldn't have been her way to say her final goodbye, lest she didn't get around to.
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