The Gown in the Window Seat

I was eight when my family flew to the highlands of northern Luzon for my lola’s burial. I had never met her, only seen her in faded photographs where she wore a dark blue dress and a stern face. The funeral was a blur of black clothes, weeping aunts, and the sharp smell of pine incense. Afterward, we returned to my tito’s cabin, a squat structure of timber and stone that overlooked a pine forest. I was exhausted from the long journey and the heavy air, so I curled up on a narrow cot in a small room at the end of the hall, furnished with only a sagging bed, a wooden dresser, and a window seat that looked out onto the misty trees.

I slept for what felt like hours, drifting through dreams of rain. When I woke, the room was dim, lit only by the weak afternoon light filtering through the dusty window. I heard my mother’s voice downstairs, along with my uncle’s deep laugh. I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and that’s when I saw her. She sat on the window seat, not in a rocking chair, but perched on the edge, her hands folded in her lap. She wore a white gown—not the crisp white of a wedding dress, but a pale, aged white, like old silk that had yellowed in places, with seams showing faint brown stains. Her hair was not grey but silver, like moonlight on water, and it flowed loose over her shoulders. She was smiling at me, a gentle, knowing smile, but her eyes held something else—a quiet patience, as if she had been waiting for me to wake.

I screamed. I didn’t know what she was—a bruha, a ghost, a trick of the light—but I scrambled off the cot and ran, my bare feet slapping on the wooden floor. I crashed into my mother’s arms in the kitchen, sobbing and babbling about the woman in white. My mother’s face went pale, and she gripped my shoulders. ‘What did she look like?’ she asked, her voice trembling slightly. ‘White dress, silver hair, she was sitting on the window seat,’ I gasped. My mother exchanged a quick, unreadable glance with my uncle, then took my hand. ‘Show me,’ she said.

We climbed the stairs together, my mother’s steps slow and measured. I pointed to the window seat, but it was empty. The room was still, the only trace of my visitor a faint indentation on the dusty cushion, as if someone had just stood up. My mother knelt beside me, her face close to mine. ‘Was she smiling?’ she asked. I nodded. My mother let out a long breath, something like relief mixed with sorrow. ‘That was Lola Elena,’ she said. ‘Your grandmother’s mother. She passed away long before you were born. She always wore a white gown—she loved that dress, even after it tore and stained. She used to sit by that window and watch the forest, waiting for her husband to come home from the hunt.’ I looked at the empty seat, a chill creeping up my spine. ‘She didn’t hurt you, did she?’ my mother asked. I shook my head. ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘She just smiled.’

Years later, when I was fourteen, I asked my mother about that afternoon again. We were sitting in our new home in the city, a world away from the pine forests. My mother looked at me, her eyes distant. ‘Lola Elena was known for two things,’ she said slowly. ‘Her love for that white gown, and her fierce protectiveness of the family. When she died, your grandfather buried her in that gown, even though it was torn and stained. He said she’d want to wear it forever.’ I felt a strange weight in my chest. ‘But I never met her,’ I said. My mother smiled, a sad, quiet smile. ‘She never had the chance to know you when you were born. But that day, after the funeral, she came to say goodbye. She was waiting for you, to finally meet you.’ I sat in silence, the memory of that silver-haired woman rising again, not as a fright, but as a gentle presence. I never saw her again, but sometimes, when I look out a window at dusk, I think of her, still watching, still smiling, wearing the gown that was her own, waiting to welcome us all home.