Walking Papa Home: Five Days of Ritual, Love, and the Unbroken Thread Between Worlds
Most people only witness a funeral from the outside. They show up clean, sit in a plastic chair, listen to a few rehearsed words, and then step back into the sunlight as if death were something that happens offstage.
But here, in this little border village where the jungle leans right up against the back door, death doesn’t slip away quietly. It’s invited in, tended to, honored, and walked gently out over many long days.
Papa: Sage of the Borderlands
Kein Sompet — my wife’s father — was an important sage in this region. Revered. Known even in places his feet never touched. And “Papa,” as he was affectionately known to his inner circle, had the unforced handsomeness of a movie hero written straight out of an old Hollywood script.
I only had a little less than a year on this earth with him, but in that short time we forged something real — a closeness, a genuine love. He was vibrant and bright. Strong and calm. Always tinkering around the farm with some tool, some rope, some mystery only he understood.
At our wedding, he glowed. My wife told me she had never seen him so outwardly joyful. And once he saw that we were settled — that his beloved daughter was content, protected, cared for — he said he was ready to go home to his wife, Oo rai won, who had passed just two years before.
The Day He Chose to Leave
This was not poetic talk. This was a man wired into the universe at the marrow level.
He announced the exact day and time of his leaving. The family protested — he was still strong. Still healthy. But he meant it.
He told my wife: “On the 8th day of the 10th month, at 1 a.m., I will go home.”
He missed it by ten minutes.
We were all there. And when the first wails of grief broke open — sharp, primal, brief — the family moved with the practiced grace of generations.
Preparing the Body
They prepared him the way this place has always prepared its dead.
- They chanted.
- Held his jaw shut.
- Undressed him.
- Bathed him.
- Powdered his skin.
- Repositioned him on his bed.
- Dressed him carefully for his journey home.
And as if a signal drifted across the village, people arrived one by one — each fulfilling a role handed down through families older than memory.
- Canopies went up.
- Seating and lighting arranged.
- Monks’ platforms assembled.
- Cooking stations prepared.
- Food, drink, and the altar where he would lie for three days all took shape in quiet efficiency.
“Watering the Corpse”
On the second day, they shifted his body slightly and positioned his hand outward, palm open. Family approached one by one to pour water over his hand — a ritual my wife simply called “watering the corpse.”
Soon after, the undertaker — a man whose entire purpose is to steward these rites — prepared Papa for the temperature-controlled, insulated casket. Precision mattered. Every gesture was deliberate.
Three Days of Laughter, Prayer, and Memory
For the next three days, villagers came. Friends. Relatives. Monks. People from distant provinces who heard he had passed and traveled to pay respects, seek forgiveness, and honor the family.
These were not quiet days.
There was laughter, music, drinking, gambling — life flowing at full volume right beside death. Each sunrise reset the cycle: food, prayer, stories, ceremony.
The Procession to the Temple
On the morning of the fifth day, we gathered again at the house. I was honored to serve as a pallbearer. We lifted his coffin and carried it to the waiting truck.
A long white string connected the procession to the coffin all the way to the temple — a reminder that the soul is never carried to the next world alone.
At the temple, we circled the ornate crematorium three times before placing the coffin at the entrance of the furnace.
Coconut Water, Farewell, and Fire
After the ceremony, relics and offerings from the past three days were removed. Then, gathered tightly around the coffin, we poured coconut water over him — a final cooling blessing.
My wife and her sisters washed his face with heartbreaking tenderness. The undertaker poured kerosene. The flame was tossed. The heavy iron door closed.
Smoke curled upward into the sky. The cremation lasted through the night.
The Heart That Didn’t Burn
When we returned for the final ceremony the next morning, one unexpected thing occurred: his heart hadn’t fully burned.
They placed it beside the crematorium and burned it in the open air until it surrendered.
Ashes, Fragments, and the Final Gathering
His ashes were poured onto a sheet of tin and shaped again into the outline of a body. Coins and flower petals arranged around him. One last ceremony.
Family sifted through the ashes for bone fragments and teeth — mementos for the urn destined for the stupa where he would rest beside his beloved.
Finally, everything was wrapped in linen and brought home to await the stupa ceremony.
The Frequency He Left Behind
Some lives leave a noise behind. Papa left a palpable frequency — a low, steady hum that seems to move through this house, this village, this family.
We don’t even have to listen closely. His presence echoes here like a bell tone.
#Buddhism #NortheastThailand #IsaanFuneral #RemoteTravel