My dreams are often so ridiculous that if they ‘came true’ I’d think I was still dreaming. Like the one where I see a child climb up on a railing and start to fall and I race down several flights of stairs to catch him before he hits the ground.
I have had some prophetic moments, though.
Our family was eating dinner once when the phone rang, and out of the blue I dropped my fork and exclaimed “O my God. Somebody died.” Mom came back from taking the call and delivered the news looking sad and confused and directly at me. “Uncle Colin had a massive heart attack and passed away in the hospital this afternoon.” He hadn’t been sick, he wasn’t old, it was completely unexpected. After that I tried to keep my sudden premonitions inside my head, so as to appear slightly less weird at the end of the day. Although it was always a toss-up – do I blurt this out before the fact, or wait until afterwards and say I knew that was going to happen? Either way, the sceptical expressions are about the same.
When my grandma died (she was 99) I didn’t go to her funeral for a number of selfish reasons. We were a thousand miles away, my kids were small, I didn’t want to take time off work, and I really hate funerals. The guilt after the fact about that, and remembering how many times grandma had wanted to sit and talk with me and I just hadn’t made the effort or taken the time, made me heartsick, remorseful, and unbearably sad.
One night, about a month after she died, I dreamed that she was standing at the foot of my bed, patting my feet, the way a mom pats a baby’s back, and softly murmuring. Grandma always said ‘there there” when we were little and upset about something and her gentle soft pats always made the hurt go away. “There, there. There, there. Don’t you worry. I know that you loved me.”
In the morning I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders and the gloom and regrets were gone. And every time I thought about her doing that for me a beautiful sensation of ease and calm and love for her would flow through me.
Was it just a dream invented by my subconscious mind to help me leave the depression behind? Or can the spirits of the departed really come back to comfort the living? I shared my “dream” experience with my sister and she had that same expression on her face that I remember from the dinner table scene so many years ago.
That’s okay though. I know she loves me anyway.
Breathing Space 