If you sit at the table where You Thai shared meals with his family you’ll feel the presence…of the man whose name is on a marker near where Lake Washington feeds into Puget Sound.
He was You Thai to some; Dad, Gun-gun, Yeh-yeh, Bah-bah and Dr. Tchao to others.
People remember important events as happening before or after the loss of loved ones. You Thai and his family shared more of such memories than most. His grandchildren knew and loved him well.
Birth sets us on a path we can roughly predict. The rites of passage are defined in the greeting-card section of every supermarket.
But the afterlife is trickier.
Religions tell us that ‘to dust we shall return.’ There are particular faiths that treat souls who have crossed over with a reverence bordering on worship.
We shouldn’t assume that being granted a follow-up life is a gift. Hindus and Buddhists see reincarnation as a sentence to doing more hard time here on earth.
Pharaohs built monuments believing they would be immortal as long as they were remembered. Now our ancestors are recorded on our phones, showing the faces and mannerisms they passed on to us.
It is not unusual to talk to the dear departed as if they were still with us. It‘s also not unusual, in quiet moments when we least expect it, to hear them answer us.
