Nan...

Not all of my weird dreams have dead people in them but this one in particular did. Not that Nan was technically dead either, when I dreamt it, rather she was sort of hovering between life and death as she drifted between conciousnesses- suffering mini stroke after mini stroke. In reality we knew there wasn't much time left for her as she had been sick for a long time, which is why, I think, that I believe she came to me in dream the night before she left us for good.

In the dream we are at her funeral, gathered around an open casket. She is small inside it and her face looks peaceful. Her daughter-in-law, who would be my mother-in-law if I was to ever marry her son, is standing beside me as we say goodbye to this lovely old lady who loved everybody. Just as we are finishing up and preparing to leave for her wake she stuns us all by waking up. We gather closely around the coffin, telling the frail little sweetheart that she will be okay now, that everything is going to be okay and that we all love her very much.

Between us, we scoop her out of the coffin in the same tender way a lover might and carry her away through the dark church to her grand daughter's twenty-first birthday party, even though she is still seemingly on the brink of death itself. The party then becomes the grand daughter's wedding, and we dance with Nan and tell her how beautiful she is to us. Then I wake with a start and look at my bedside table clock.

I can't remember what time it was now but I know that I wanted to remember it, that it was important for some reason. When I woke again later in the morning my Hubby had left me a note on the table- his father had called to say that Nan had died in the night. I wasn't terribly surprised as she had been sick for so long, but why had I dreamt of her the night that she left her body for the final time?

I found out some time later that she hadn't gone to either of her grand daughter's two big occasions, as she had been too ill at the time. So I suppose I like to think that she got to go after all, somehow, through me in that dream. That if her soul was just leaving her body that night- and the timing was pretty good you have to admit- that she somehow connected with me and experienced that party and that wedding through me.

I don't really know why she would choose to come to me, but as usual I have a theory. Her daughter and daughter-in-law were both by her side, awake, while she died, and Nan wasn't able to get through to their sub-conciousness- because they were the more logical choices and who she, more than likely, would have rather gone to visit that night if she had been able to.

And if she ever was to find the way back I don't think she'd choose to come to me again- she would go to the one who grieves her still- and she would be welcomed.