This story was also published in a Russian magazine at the beginning of the last century. Its author reports:
“I studied at the university as a scholar, as needy. My mother had many children. We lived extremely poorly. After graduating from university, they drove me, as they say, into a bear's corner - to work out a scholarship, to an area where typhus was rampant.
At this time my mother became terminally ill. I received a telegram about this, but they didn’t let me go home. At the bedside of the dying woman, my older sister Tanya, who was already a bride, sat almost all the time. Mother turned to her with a request:
- Tanya, bury me, dear, in my wedding dress. It is sanctified. I got married in it in church. I want to lie in it and in the coffin. The daughter sobbed:
- Mommy, don't die! I am a bride, and we still have so many little sisters and brothers.
- This is the will of God. Do not be sad. The Lord will help. Fulfill my request for a dress.
- Do not hesitate, I will do everything as you said.
A few days later, the mother passed away. They sent me a telegram again. But due to the intensified epidemic of typhus, as a doctor and a former scholar, I was again not allowed to go home. I got to my home only two months later.
Promotional video:
I walk through our garden. Summer. The sun is shining. Two o'clock in the afternoon. I go and think: somehow Tanya copes with the household, do her younger ones obey? I didn't even think about my deceased mother in those minutes.
Suddenly I saw my mother walking down the path toward me. What is this - a hallucination? Illusion? I slapped myself on the forehead. No, alive. And comes close to me. There was only one step left between us, I stopped in amazement, and my mother spoke:
- Seryozha …
- Excuse me, mother! You are dead!
- It doesn't mean anything, Seryozha. I am more alive now than when I was with you … I did not just come to you. The Lord allowed me to do this, I feel sorry for Tanya. She did not fulfill my last wish, although she promised to fulfill it. Didn't bury me in my wedding dress. She felt sorry for him. I'm afraid for her soul. Tell, Serezhenka, that this dress be given to the beggar today.
- Mom. Which dress? I do not understand. You died, but I can see you alive now. Yes, I must have lost my mind …
“Don't worry, Seryozha, don't worry, because I'm alive, only my body has died … And about the dress, Tanya herself will tell you. Only you tell her my conversation with you. Tell her that I forgive her. But let my dress be given to the poor today.
Looking affectionately at me, my mother crossed me with a large cross.
Excited, I entered the apartment and hastened to enter Tanya's room.
- Tanya, I just saw mom, living mom, and talked to her!
- How alive? As said? You must have seen her in a dream. I also dreamed twice. Do not worry.
- No, Tanya, not in a dream, but in reality. Right now, here, in our garden on the path, I met her. And that's what surprised me. She said that you did not fulfill her wish - to put her in her wedding dress in a coffin, but put the deceased in a different dress. Was it really so, tell me, Tanechka?
Tanya turned pale and cried.
- Yes, I regretted this dress in the coffin … It is silk, and I am the bride. Well, you know how poor we are! So I dressed my mother in her satin dress. And no one but me knew what my mother told me - to dress her in a wedding dress. I am shocked that she herself from the other world came to you and said about it.
“And she not only said, Tanechka, but told me to tell you that you were worried about your soul, that you did a wrong thing by promising your dying mother to fulfill her last request, but then regretted the dress …
Tanya sobbed bitterly:
- I am guilty, Seryozha, guilty …
- Do not Cry. Mom also told me to say that she forgives you. But that the wedding dress was given to the poor today.
- But how can we give the dress to the beggars? Not a single beggar comes to us. Everyone around us knows how poor we are now … We are in debt, I can hardly cope with the household and with numerous orphans.
- No, Tanya, if mother ordered to give her outfit to the beggars today, then some poor man will come to us. Take your wedding dress out of the chest.
Tanya took out the dress and put it on the table.
Less than two hours later there was a knock on the garden gate. An old man came in and said:
- Donate, for Christ's sake, some clothing for the poor bride. There is nothing to dress her in to marry her. She is my great-granddaughter.
Now the mother's wedding dress was given to the beggar.
Somehow everything in this story is smooth. And strange at the same time. Why did the mother need to take the expensive dress into the coffin? I could also ask to put all the jewelry, all the money and everything of value in the house there. It is clear that she will not take money and so on with her to the Other World. So why should she THERE this expensive dress - the only value of the family? Then, if the daughter did not fulfill the promise, then it is not a sin (there is no such commandment) - and therefore there is no need to worry about her soul. After all, no one from the Other World appears on behalf of God to our presidents and politicians and does not tell them that you, gentlemen, have not fulfilled your pre-election promises. And why did the dress have to be given to the beggar? In general, all this is strange.