The signs – if that’s what they were – started out as dreams. The first night I dreamed I was in my Grandma’s bathroom. I was standing there wondering what it was like to be her, knowing that I could die any day now. When I awoke from that dream I attributed it to something else in my life that I needed to let die and move on from. The following night I dreamed my dad woke me up to tell me to get ready because we were going to go to the moon! I excitedly hopped out of bed and then walked into my Grandma’s kitchen, of all places, and accepted a cup of coffee from Roseanne Bar. Admittedly, I had a hard time connecting this dream to something in my waking life. However, only a couple of hours after waking from that dream, my dad called to tell me that Grandma had just died.
At that point, I did not view my dreams as signs “to get ready” (as my dad had told me in the dream) but I did find it interesting that the two nights before Grandma’s death my dreams took place in her house. I chalked it up to coincidence and did my best to push through the day while fighting back the grief.
Later that afternoon, my husband told me to look out my office window. Gleaming through all the miserable, dark clouds (which ironically is how I felt on the inside) was a beautiful rainbow. My husband, who is quite the skeptic said, “Maybe that’s a sign from your Grandma.” Well, even though it does rain in Florida all the time, it is rare to see a rainbow afterwards, especially one so bright and clear. Okay, I thought. I’ll go with that. It makes me feel better. Why not?
The next day my father called again and asked if I would give the eulogy at Grandma’s funeral. Gah!! I had quite a few mini freakouts before I decided I really should do it, even though I knew it would be one of the hardest things I will have ever done… mainly because I cry very easily so holding back the tears in front of all those people would be TOUGH!! When I finally sat down to write it, I was pretty surprised how easily it flowed out of me and onto my computer. It’s almost like I’m being guided from above, I joked to myself. Hmmm…
So we had the funeral and I managed to push through the eulogy, which was very well received, and then we laid my sweet Grandma to rest. After the funeral my family and I went up the mountain to say good-bye to our family home… the home I had lived in from age 8 to age 18… the family home my parents lived in until a year ago… the family home where we all gathered for holidays, birthdays or whenever we could, just to be together. It was pretty ironic, considering all the years the home was for sale, that my parents finally sold it within days of Grandma dying. And now here we all were not only saying good-bye to Grandma but also (on the same day) saying good-bye to our beloved family home. Is this some kind of sign? Or just another coincidence like my dreams? What is it a sign of?
Anyway, the house was completely empty except for a very few remaining boxes. There was, however, a bag with about 20 pictures in it. After 32 years of life lived in this house, the pictures in the bag could have been of a myriad of things.
This was one of the pictures in the bag. That’s my Grandma and my Papaw. I had never seen it before and I’m not sure where this is. In fact, my husband was the one that brought the picture to me. And when he did, he said, “This is a sign.” Remember, my husband is pretty skeptical of an afterlife so this, coming from him… AGAIN… well, it’s odd. None the less, this time, I completely and fully agreed that this was a sign, a sign from above that my grandparents are back together again and someone or something is trying to let us know.
I would have chalked this up to yet another coincidence… if it weren’t for the ending of my eulogy… that eulogy that flowed so easily out of me to the point it felt like I was being guided from above:
But my sweetest memory of Grandma will always be the last time I saw her, surrounded by her children, her grandchildren and all of her great grandchildren. I thought to myself, “My gosh, I can only imagine the pride she must be feeling when she looks at this room full of people that are here on this earth because she lived and because she loved. What a long, full, happy, life this sweet woman has lived.”
So God, we turn this sweet woman over to you now. We thank you for letting us have her for the time we did. And please, make sure you get her back into Papaw’s arms ASAP… he’s certainly waited long enough!
Some people might say, “You’re looking for signs right now so naturally you’ll take anything as a sign to make yourself feel better.” And to be honest, this is something I would probably say to someone else. In fact, I often say that we need to be careful that we don’t paint the bulls eye around the arrow when people tell me a dream they think was showing them the future. Human nature causes us to manipulate reality in order to fit our narrative. The thing is, I wasn’t looking for signs. These signs were literally brought to me and pointed out to me.
I can’t help but think of a quote I once saw: “Coincidences are God’s way of choosing to be anonymous.” Come to think of it, I saw this quote on a SIGN in front of a little church that I drove by every single day when I lived in the family home. Now, I wait for one last sign from above… a dream where Grandma pops in to say, “Heyyyyy!”
Have you lost a loved one recently? Your dreams are not only a pretty nifty, buit-in healing mechanism but can also – possibly – be a means by which those that have passed on can communicate. My ebook So, What Did You Dream Last Night has a whole chapter devoted to dreams we have after the death of a loved one. It’s only $2.99 and you can start reading it in seconds from now!
“I don’t know why I didn’t order your books YEARS ago. I am so excited! I’m halfway through “So What Did You Dream Last Night” and LOVE LOVE LOVE it. You had me cracking up several times. I’m so happy to know I’m not the only one with completely off the wall dreams.” – Gina, Springdale, PA
A few years ago a good friend died. I feel she still “speaks” to me in dreams and other signs. Two months ago I had the most vivid dream of my life. Most dreams are in black and white, but this was unbelievable, bright and gorgeous with color. I was in a paradise. I was riding the waves on the ocean (on a sheet! I covered my grandson with the night before). There were a number of people doing the same thing. The waves were large, and gently rolling. They would bring us together, and then pull us apart.Everyone was happy and having a great time. As I’m on the ocean, I was actually on the phone with my (departed) friend, telling Lu this magnificant place I was in…the sun shining, the blue water, the gorgeous sky – the sun was setting. I eventually found myself on the beach, and as I went to take a picture of the sunset, it disappeared behind a building. / When I told a mutual friend about this dream, she said, Lu was just letting me know she really is ok, and she’s in a magnificient place. I didn’t tell anyone, but I took that a step further. You see, my father had been struggling with cancer for 3 years and I thought my friend was letting me know he would be ok. About a week later my dad passed, and I thought about the beautiful dream my friend brought to me. It gave me comfort knowing / believing my dad was in such a paradise.
They always leave signs. I had just gone to my brother funeral coming back home and knowing that my brother son my nephew had stage 4 cancer also I looked and in front of me and three was a rainbow people started driving slow just watching because there were no rain insight. I stared for a long time thinking it was my brother and my dad but it was three large rainbows and eight months later my nephew died and all three of them were really really close.
Lauri,
Don’t know if it is my computer, but if you look at the photo of the rainbow, it is indeed a double rainbow. There is a fainter rainbow on the outside of the bright rainbow. Could it be Papaw, another sign?
That’s really thinking at an imepsrsive level
Sonia! Una gran manera de hacer la pasta, a mi me encanta con verduritas y esta propuesta tuya es ideal. Veré si tengo éxito con mi nieto, que no es muy de calabacines! besitos
Pour résumer1: L’eau rend blanc (Laurent Blanc)2: Pas de pitié pour les croissants?3: Obama Self (All by my self)4: Chérèque 4 (Shrek 4)5: Mon voisin toto rote (Mon voisin Totoro)6: Bénit l’île? (Benny Hill)7: L’ami molette (La mimolette)8: ?
Me olvidaba en consultar, he escuchado de que algunas personas le ponen cerveza, y si yo le añado un poco cambiara el sabor o lo dañaria? es recomendable o no?Pienso que quedaria super rico con cerveza, pero quizas una cerveza no muy fuerte para que complemente el sabor sin sobreimponerse.
Thanks for the post and the mention. It’s true, the doors are open now, I wish young people in the UK would read this and realise that the path is open to them also. Up and down but never back. No siree.DawnDawn recently posted..
Essays like this are so important to broadening people’s horizons.
It seems that they do let us know they are still here… even when we aren’t looking for signs. 🙂
Hi Lauri,
Thank you for sharing such a personal matter for you and your family. Very interesting signs indeed. I had similar experiences after the passing of my own gramma a couple years ago.
I dreamed my car flew off the cliff and we died. died right around the time my gramma died IRL. I was still fully me, and the nurse gave me photo albums that came to life, showing me many scenes of my lifetime. I said “I don’t feel dead, I feel the same!” I knew after that dream that we exist, we continue to live on after death. We are still ourselves, only in a different form. This was kind exciting to me!!!
She had a large collection of hummingbirds. That summer I had numerous hummingbirds flying all over my property, some would literally follow me and hang right by my face, or stare at me through the windows of the house, no one else mind you, just at me.
She was also a gardner who grew lush flowers. I dreamed after her death: She smiled, happily walking down a smooth stone path, sun shining, flowers ALL around her, she said “never before have I seen so many beautiful flowers!!!” ( I could even see little puffs of dandelion drifting through the hazy summer air.) She was very happy to be where she was; Heaven? Grandpa told her that when her time came too, he was building her a log cabin in heaven. She looked a little younger, maybe 70 rather than 93. The dream gave me comfort.