In That Sleep of Death What Dreams May Come

I had a dream about my dead grandma on April 14th. She passed away at the end of March around 4 am. These days, I can't help but be affected by her death. This was my dream:

I don't remember the first part. About what happened in the beginning. What I do remember was standing in a vast empty, flat space that stretched out for miles. There was nothing in the distant. The place was covered with a smoky mist. A light fog. The floor seemed gray, or maybe the color tone of everything was grayish, except for the fog that gave it a touch of white. The atmosphere was surreal, as though you were walking through a cloud. I don't remember if there was a sky. But there was definitely the grayish floor, in which I was standing on. It felt like cold, hard dirt. Maybe the sky was actually just another shade of gray also.

Despite the fogginess, what was odd was that I was not alone. I felt the presence of others around me. I didn't recognize any of these people though. Some were looking at me; some were walking in other directions. Crossing my path, walking behind me, going forward. There was no noise. Except for a swishing sound, like there was wind blowing although I didn't feel a breeze. They didn't seem rushed. It looked like they were just floating around. Maybe their feet did move, but it was as though they glided whenever they walked. They looked light. For those that did look at me, it was a cold, blank stare. No emotions. It was an ashen, pallid face. No smiles, no twinkles in the eyes. I think they were mostly wearing black.

Time didn’t seem to be an issue here in this space. Everything just seemed to stretch out for eternity, suspended in time. I had a sinking feeling, knowing inside that these people were not alive. But I tried not to know it.

I felt a tiny bit of anxiety standing there. I didn't know where I was. I was beginning to feel scared. Everything was a bit too eerie and sad. It was like a scene from an old, silent black and white film.

Then I saw a small cloudy gray mist, about the size of a small dog. It wasn't that far away from me. It didn't have a shape, and it seemed to distort every now and then. For a second I actually thought that it was a dog.

I was standing still, but it felt as though the gray mist came nearer to me, although it did not seem to move. Movement there seemed to slow down and pause, then start again. It was a constant flow of motion, yet it seemed still.

For some reason, I had a feeling that it was my grandma, who recently died. I don't know how I knew. Maybe it was the hope inside me that wanted it to be her. But I did strongly feel inside that it was her.

I was a bit scared, yet I felt warm inside. The warmth felt like the love I had for her, and the love she had for me. I felt protected, but I was scared because I knew she was dead. I couldn't see her clearly because it was still just a gray mist.

I didn't know that in dreams one can still imagine. But I started to imagine her face, her grayish-white curly hair. The face I saw whenever I went to her house as a child, sometimes wearing glasses, sometimes not. Then I pictured her face on the hospital bed, as she laid there hooked up to a machine that helped her breathe. Her soft, wrinkled skin. The breaths of air she painfully gasped. It was painful and hurtful. The thought of losing somebody and not being able to talk to that person ever again. It’s so difficult to be alive.

My heart ached. Not at how she looked. But at how I felt seeing her again.

The tears came. It flowed silently and gently down my cheeks.

Then I noticed that there was another person standing next to her. I couldn’t see him clearly also. But he wasn’t a gray mist, and I could make out the outline of a human body. For some reason, I thought it was my uncle. The one that was still alive. I felt confused, not sure why they were together. They just stood there, looking at me.

I couldn't tell or see how they felt. Maybe that was the hardest part of all. Because at least I hoped to see her smiling, happy and well. Instead, I didn't know, I couldn't tell. And that was it, the gray mist just stood still.

I woke up with tears in my eyes. I didn't understand what had happened. It was a dream but I woke up feeling so sad about her death. I thought to myself, why was that place so sad? A place where people seem to just wait or search for something.

The phone was ringing. It was the phone that woke me up. It was my mom calling to ask when I was going home.

Later that night my mom was talking about my grandma. She misses her. She said that it was difficult thinking that in this life, she would not see her again. She wonders if there will ever be another chance of being together, being her daughter again. It was sad, thinking that people have only one life to be with someone. It seemed so short.

I wasn't sure whether to tell her of my dream. It was kind of difficult. I wasn’t sure why. Instead, I asked if she dreamt about her. She said no. Sadly no. But she said my uncle did. The night she died, he dreamt that she was sitting at an old coffee shop back in her younger days, the one she always went to with my grandpa.

I thought, it's these old places in your memory that tears you up. Ones that are no longer there, or at least are changed. A past that cannot merge with the present.

In the dream, my uncle ran up to her and asked why she was sitting here. She said that she was waiting for my grandpa.

My grandpa died when my mom was 25. My grandma lived for more than 40 years without him. I thought to myself that she must be a very strong person to have lived without my grandpa for so long.

I still haven’t told her about my dream.

I wrote this because I didn’t want to forget this dream, especially this dream.