I woke up at past midnight after dreaming about my father. I can’t remember what it was exactly but it might have been about him checking out something that I’ve done or DIY-ed. Was it a project? Was it my house? I can’t remember now but I have traces of warm fuzzy feelings from that encounter.

Todos los santos and dia de todas los almas (All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day) have passed and I haven’t visited my father’s columbarium. But I did buy a bouquet of flowers and extra fat/large candles for him that my mom brought. Maybe I just dreamt about him because of this guilty feeling. You see, the observation of these holidays, especially All Souls’ Day, is about praying for the souls of the loved ones who are stuck in purgatory. I don’t believe in purgatory—it’s a Catholic construct and even when I was still Catholic, I questioned this concept.

Purgatory was invented so that the church can raise money for the Crusades. The church sells indulgences so that essentially “buys out” the soul of your loved ones stuck in purgatory. Martin Luther, a monk, said this exploited the poor. The selling of indulgences is a source of so much corruption in the Catholic church and this sparked the revolt within the church, hence, the protests = protestants. The number one thesis of Luther is salvation is achieved by faith alone, not by good works, not by buying your way out of purgatory—that is not biblical anyway.

• Ephesians 2:8“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. “

But I still observe All Souls’ Day for the remembrance aspect. It’s more for my benefit—and for the benefit of my children who didn’t meet my father. I have already been comforted by the fact that people saw that he went to church the morning he died, which was unusual. After he got sick (massive heart attack that made him weak), he stopped going to church physically. He didn’t want people who knew him to pity him when they saw him in that state. So he would just hear mass by our gate since our house is literally spitting distance from church.

But that morning was different. He scrounged through our clean laundry that were for ironing and took out his favorite red and white striped shirt, took several of our handkerchiefs, folded them, and stuffed them in his back pocket. He went to church to attend the first mass of the day at 6 am, cooked breakfast for him and my brother, took a nap and never woke up.

How did I know about what he did moments before he died? I was the second child to have arrived home and the house was still as it was when he left. The clean laundry for ironing was located in my room and I saw he rummaged through it and he didn’t put it back. When I checked his clothes that he had hung on the back of the door in his room, I saw he had worn his favorite shirt and in his back pocket were our handkerchiefs with his. He took a part of us when he went to church, maybe, to ask God for salvation because he knew it was time.

That’s how I knew my father is not in purgatory or anywhere else.