I have been through quite a lot in my 27-years of life. A lot of death, a lot of trauma. I lost my grandma when I was 9 as well as my pastor within a month, my great grandpa at 12, great grandma at 13. My 10-year-old cousin died of cancer when I was 15, followed shortly by her little brother ten months later when I was 16. There were a few others in there as well, but these were the ones that had the greatest impact. I actually had a “funeral” section in my closet by my late teens. At that point, I figured I had grief figured out. I’d lost so many people at that point that I didn’t think it got much harder.
I was dead wrong.
Nothing prepared me for the sudden loss of my grandpa on my dad’s side when I was 18. During that summer, I had been visiting him every Tuesday. We would have coffee, run errands, go through the paper and ads together. It was simple and sweet and my favorite time with grandpa.
One particular Monday, I realized we hadn’t finalized a time for me to come over the next day, so I called him. He didn’t answer, but it was after 8 when I called, so I knew he might be sleeping. I left a message for him to call me. Tuesday morning came and I had no call from grandpa. As the morning got later, I started panicking. With all the death in my life, I was terrified whenever someone didn’t call me back or answer the phone. I decided to call him and see what was going on. Relief flooded over me as I heard the busy signal from his line. “Good,” I thought. “If the phone’s busy, that means he’s alive.” Right after I hung up, the phone rang and it was his number. Finally! But when I answered, it was a woman’s voice that I heard on the other end. “Who is this?” I asked, panic rising in my chest. It was my great aunt, my grandpa’s sister. One of the neighbors had called her because grandpa’s paper was in front of his door, and he always grabbed it in the morning. She had the landlord let her into the apartment where she found my grandpa’s body, in his recliner, holding the sports section from the day before. All she said was “he’s gone.”
I burst into tears as I screamed “no” through the phone, over and over again. “No! That’s not possible!” I screamed at her. She suddenly gasped realizing who I was. “Oh my goodness, is this Bailey?” she asked. “Yes,” I sobbed. “I thought you were your mom, sweetie! I’m so sorry!” I kept crying. It was common knowledge that my grandfather and I were very close, so she knew that she had made a mistake. I continued to cry as she asked for my dad’s work phone number. “No,” I said. “I’ll call him.”
Once I hung up, a guttural scream came from me as I threw the phone across the living room and I fell to my knees and wept. I had to go get the phone and call my mom to tell her. I don’t know how she understood me through the tears, but she did and came right home. Then I had to call my dad and tell him that his father had just died. He handled it better than I had on the phone. He came right home as well.
My mom held me when she came home. I couldn’t stop crying. When I saw my dad’s car pull up out front, I went out to meet him. I was devastated, so I knew it had to be worse for him. I gave him a hug and told him how sorry I was. We met mom at the door and he told us how he had had to call his brothers and tell them. He changed and went over to my grandpa’s apartment. I guess his body was still there so I elected to not go. My cousins and uncles went, I believe, but I didn’t want to see him like that.
This was the first time I had been asked to help plan a funeral. I even wrote his obituary. Dad and I talked about songs to play at the funeral. There were some from when they were kids that my grandpa would have liked, songs that my grandparents used to dance to. I had never told my dad this, but there was a song that always reminded me of my grandpa, though I had heard it in a movie years before. But it had always stuck with me. It’s called “Once Upon a Time” by Jay McShann. My dad listened to it and agreed that it was a good song for the funeral, probably would play it during the recessional past the open casket.
When the day of the funeral came, I cried and cried. Sat with my mom as I looked at the shell of the man who had once been my favorite human being. My cousins consoled me, knowing how close I was with my grandpa. As the funeral came to a close, people began filing down the aisle up to the casket to say goodbye. I went up with my parents and only briefly looked at him. He wasn’t grandpa anymore. And I didn’t get to say goodbye when I still could.
As I started to walk away, my dad stopped me. My grandfather had promised me as a little girl that when he passed, I would get his and grandma’s wedding bands. All of grandma’s jewelry too, actually, which was all costume save for her wedding ring, band, and one other ring. My cousins all agreed to this as well. So while I went to the car with my mom, my dad removed my grandfather’s wedding band and glasses to give to me.
When dad got to the car he asked, “Did you see your uncles at the end of the service?” “I didn’t really look, I guess,” I replied. I had been too focused on the casket. “Sweetie,” he began. “When the song you picked out, ‘Once Upon a Time,’ started playing, your uncles started bawling.”
“Really?” I asked, wondering why. “Yeah,” he said. “They asked me if I remembered the song. I didn’t, but they did. You picked out a song that grandma and grandpa used to dance to.” I felt goose bumps all over my arms. Somehow, I connected this song to them with no knowledge that it was a special song for them all along. I had no clue.
“Wow,” was all I could say. I was still pretty numb.
I have posted before about my mental break down after my grandfather’s death. Well, that happened about two months later, just after my 19th birthday. After I left school and went home, I had a dream one night.
My dad and I, as well as a few other nameless faces, were at an outdoor burial of my grandpa. I was sobbing in the dream, looking at my grandpa’s lifeless form in the ground. He was in a suit and they had just covered him up to his head with a blanket. People began to shovel dirt onto him, beginning the actual burial. I remember watching him closely in the dream… and I noticed something. As people began to drift away from the burial, including my dad, I saw that whenever pieces of dirt landed on his face, he was blowing them away from his mouth. And then when a whole shovelful landed on him, he swiftly moved the blanket to cover his face from the falling dirt.
“Stop!” I screamed at the people shoveling dirt on him. “Stop! He’s alive! He’s breathing and moving! Stop!” I could see my grandpa’s form stir under the blanket. The nameless faces shoveling dirt backed away as I leaned in to speak to my grandfather. He pulled the blanket from his face, and his eyes were open. “Grandpa, what are you doing? Why are you letting them do this to you? You’re still alive!” I remember, very clearly, the words he spoke to me next, as though he was really right next to me. “Because it doesn’t matter, punkin’(his pet name for me),” he said with warmth mixed with sadness. “I know it’s hard, but it’s my time to go. And when it’s your time, it’s your time.”
I started crying again. “But I don’t want you to go,” I cried. “I know, punkin’,” he said. “But it will be okay. And I’ll see you again.”
“Okay, grandpa,” I sobbed. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too, punkin’,” he said.
That’s the first and only time in my life that I have awoken crying from a dream. It was as real as the day of his funeral, and I had lost him all over again. But I was able to say goodbye this time. Tell him I love him. It was nowhere near good enough compared to having him alive, but it was better than nothing.
I spoke to my therapist about the dream. She helped me realize that the dream was real, in a way. In that my grandfather did speak to me through the only channel he could, to let me know that it was his time when he died. And that he was okay with it.
I still firmly believe that the dream was real. And I have prayed to have one like it but with my mom. That dream gave me closure, something I’m not sure I will ever get from losing my mom. But it would be something.
I’ve had more dreams with him in them, equally as real, but never as intense. One time we were walking on a roof of a building in the rain with umbrellas over our heads. I remember telling him that I had wanted to talk to my mom (no offense). He simply replied, “Yeah, but you got me instead.”
The dreams have lessened over the years, and I still haven’t had a dream where I could talk to my mom. At least not one that has been meaningful and real.
I’m grateful for the dreams I had with my grandfather though. It reminds me that I’m not alone, and that he’s still up there watching out for me, along with all the others I’ve lost.
Someday we will be together again in God’s heavenly kingdom. And until that day arrives, until it becomes “my time,” I will wait.
I think I’m okay with that. What’s a lifetime compared to eternity?
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