Hanging with Bubby

I have a gift of prescient dreaming, though I cannot control when it appears. The last time I can remember having a dream with my grandmother, a dream that felt as real as waking reality, was eight years ago. She had died, quite suddenly in fact and at an early age, and I had certain regrets because I felt that we had not had the chance to say good-bye properly. She was like a surrogate mother to me, and her death had affected me deeply.

One month after her funeral (the Jewish Shloshim), I had a dream in which she and I were standing in the basement in their house in Providence; there were other family members in the scene but they faded into the background. I stood facing my grandmother, she was wearing her typical practical and yet fashionably layered New England/LL Bean look. We hugged, I told her how much I loved her and missed her, and I apologized for not speaking to her on a more regular basis before her death. I woke up the next morning feeling that we had truly bridged time and space, that place between the living and the deceased; I woke up feeling her love and a sense of closure.

Last night, I had a dream with a similar feeling. I was standing in the kitchen in the house in Providence, telling my grandmother about my pregnancy. My grandmother said, "I don't know why your mother was so afraid to tell me. I am so happy for you!" Then she had me pick up my shirt so she could put her hands on my belly, and I tried to encourage the baby to accommodate the moment and kick a little. After than, my grandmother and I decided to get into pajamas and watch a movie together. I didn't tell her, though I remember thinking this in the dream, that in fact she had passed on, and that some part of my child's name would reflect her legacy and her memory. I didn't want to spoil the moment, I was having too much fun.

Even in the after-life, she is one of the coolest women I know.

I woke up this morning knowing that she knew about this baby, that I had told her myself even if she already knew in a higher existence, and that for the first time since she died, she and I had done something together, just like old times. I woke up happy.