The night before Grannie died, our private conversation is stamped into my memory. “I don’t want you to suffer,” she said, knowing my life would be forever changed. She was eighty-two, with the mind and valor of a young woman. So beautiful still. 

I saw her for the last time in a light pink nightgown and matching house coat, finally at peace, as if she had fallen asleep. I didn’t touch her because I wanted to remember how warm and comforting it was to sit beside her and lay my head on the softest shoulder I’d ever known. 

Grannie’s death came the summer before my senior year of high school. She’d been living in our home, still helping me with homework (she swore by the Britannica encyclopedia) and making my favorite meals—fideo, arroz con pollo, and carne con chili. We were as close as it gets, and I didn’t know how to live without her. 

Within a week’s time of her passing, a dream came to me. It was as vivid and clear as a scene on a motion picture screen. She and I trudged together through a large sea of water, an ocean of pastels, tumultuous waves whipping past us, washing over us, as we held tight to each other. The shore waited patiently far in the distance. Grannie’s message to me in those moments, “Thank you for staying by my side when I struggled with illness and fought my own death, even though you too were afraid.”

The scene came to life again as we reached the shore, our feet held steady by warm sand, soft and consoling. I smiled, thankful to have overcome our distress. Yet before any time passed, Grannie let go and walked on her own, without struggling. She moved with confidence, never looking back. I watched and waited, not taking my eyes off her, as she drifted away from me, across the sand, until I couldn’t see her anymore. She was saying, “Thank you for letting go when it was my time to walk away.”

I looked down at my feet, not knowing where to take them, or how to move forward. When I raised my head and looked into the distance, there she was. This time, Grannie faced me, her right arm linked with the man who stood beside her. This man, I’d seen in her wedding photos, but never knew. He died at the age of forty-two, when my mother was just a teenager, and Grannie never remarried. They stood, as they might have on their wedding day, dressed in white gowns with gold sashes, wearing bright, untroubled smiles. Beaming with peace and oneness. Their unspoken message was powerfully clear, “Thank you for looking up with wide eyes, and for opening your heart and mind. We are here together, and we’re safe. There’s no need for you to suffer.” Though not a word was spoken, I understood.

The dream ended there but remains as vivid now as it was that night. From the moment I awoke, I never suffered for my grannie. I miss her, sure. But I remember her with a content smile and a heart filled with gratitude. 

Now, a grandmother myself, I’ve become the lady who craves words, reading and writing passionately as Grannie did. And loving my own grandchildren, the way she loved me. Through her messages, I know our connection is everlasting and unbreakable. 

Once a message is received, a dream may end. But its meaning lives on forever.

(Published by Phoenix Oasis Press, May 2023.)