For a Dreamer, Night's the Only Time of Day

Two nights ago I had a very eerie dream, the kind of epic dream in which you recall every detail with vivid imagery, the kind of dream where you wake up and are tormented with the thought, "did that just happen, or was I dreaming?" I tend to have very vivid dreams several times a week, but this one in particular has been haunting me for the past 48 hours.

I'm in my grandparents' old house in New York, where my brother and I often spent weeks at a time during summer vacations, and our family spent numerous holidays. It was an amazing house, equipped with secret passageways, a creepy basement, an attic full of antiques, and multiple floors... perfect for hide and seek and other fun games we played when we visited.

However, in my dream, I'm not a child. It's the present day, and I am frantically running through their house. I pass my grandfather, who is seated at the kitchen table, head in his hands, crying. I feel panic and frustration as I continue half-running, half-walking through the various corridors and levels of the house. I feel the urgency of knowing that I am dreaming, knowing that I need to complete something before I can wake up.

I run up the all-too familar stairs to the sewing room/attic, where the twin bed that I slept in when visiting still had the same sheets and quilt I remember from when I was ten. The rocking chair is still in the corner, blocking the door to the actual attic. But the rocking chair is... rocking. I don't seen anyone in the chair, so I slowly walk closer. Suddenly, my grandmother appears in the chair. She stands up and walks towards me. I start crying hysterically; it is now apparent that I have been searching for her in the house.

My grandmother died the third week of September in 2002.

As I'm crying, she places her hand on my shoulder, and I look into her eyes. She smiles at me.

"I'm so sorry, Grammy," I say between tears. "Please forgive me."
Grammy looks at me and smiles again, her gray hair falling around her face in beautiful curls. There is a light suddenly shining through the small window.

"I'm so glad to see that you are finally happy," she says. I can feel the warmth of her hand on my shoulder. "I love you."

And then I woke up, still crying. But it was real. I touched my shoulder and it was still warm from where Grammy had touched me. And I felt overwhelmed with relief. I had just seen my grandmother... and she looked the same as the last time I saw her. But the relief was more because I apologized, and she even acknowledged my current state of happiness (she was always overly critical of every boy I dated).

My grandmother was diagnosed with cancer in the spring of 2001, but didn't tell anyone. When my father suggested I come home from college one weekend in early September of 2002 to go visit her and my grandfather at their house in New York, I just casually said I would see them at Thanksgiving, since that was always the tradition. I wanted to spend the weekend with my college friends, since sophomore year had barely begun. I didn't know my grandmother was dying. I didn't know I would never see her again. No one told me. I didn't know. I.didn't.know. That guilt has plagued me for a very long time.

I believe that the spirits of our loved ones occasionally visit us, as if checking up on us. Was that really a dream, or did my grandmother enter my sleep cycle to talk to me, to allow me to apologize, to let me know that she knows I've found The One? Call me crazy, but I truly believe that my grandmother visited me 48 hours ago, which was six years to the date of her death.