The Dream

Let’s go back, almost 30 years.

After a night out with my family at the mall, I came home, exhausted from all the skeet-shooting my sister and I had done in the arcade that evening. After having changed, I slipped into my cool bed, excited for a good night’s rest. I couldn’t help but feel annoyed, however, that I still had another tooth left to lose. It was my right canine tooth, and I recall maneuvering my tongue back-and-forth to try to loosen it from my gums. No such luck. It was just barely loose.

After finally falling asleep, I entered into a strange dream state. My whole life, I have always been puzzled by the sheer fact that we dream. I always think of dreams as an elaborate stage show that our subconscious puts on in the theater of our minds every night. This one was unique, though. There was no naked shopping, no indoor tidal waves, no soaring through the sky… This dream was rather simple.

I was at my paternal grandparents’ home that they’d both moved out of a couple years prior. Ever since then, they lived in nursing homes, with my grandfather having been transferred to the hospital only a couple days prior for his worsening condition. Most of his problems stemmed from Parkinson’s disease. We all knew he wasn’t doing well, but I never realized how fast he was spiraling downward, with his vitals becoming weaker by the hour.

After being asleep for, I would estimate, an hour, my eyes opened up to the backyard of my grandparents’ old home in Portland, Maine. This was always one of my favorite places to play as a young child. The yard was so big to my 7-year-old self, and I clearly recall the thick kelly-green grass, filling the yard from end-to-end. There were no bare spots. The perimeter was laden with rich, golden buttercup flowers, interspersed with several overgrown grassy spots along the back edge. There was an old picket fence that separated their yard from the neighboring homes on each side, but it was so old and worn that it only added to the rustic, storybook feel to the property. There was also a homemade shed in the northwest corner of the yard, which served as an ideal place to hide when it came time to go home. Just beyond the shed, you could see into the backyards of almost everyone on that block, which I loved. There were no barriers that separated the property lines, so it looked like one sprawling field, which would surely tempt any little boy or girl. I can still clearly envision the immense, shared land that presumably served as a fortuitous bypass for the neighborhood children.

It was as if I woke up in my dream-state, opening my eyes to this beautiful, Rockwellian image. I had no perception of my physical self; to this day, I have no recollection of what I was wearing or how I looked. My field of vision took me right back there, and it felt so nostalgic. Suddenly, I remember spotting a big, wide picnic table situated directly in the center of the yard. My father’s parents did own a picnic table, but it wasn’t the same one that I saw in my dream. This one looked like it had just been built, varnished, and placed in the yard. The natural wood stain appearance of the table invited me to walk the couple of feet towards it and have a seat. As I swung my leg over the bench, I caught a glimpse of my grandfather, walking out from inside the shed, walking straight towards me, with the purest, most satisfied look on his face. He was draped in the same outfit that he wore in a photograph taken before I was born, in that same yard, when all 10 of his kids gathered together for the quintessential summer barbecue. He was wearing a black-and-white striped polo, royal blue lounge pants, and comfortable-looking loafers with dark socks. As far as I knew, that photo represented one of the last occasions where the whole family spent time together, so it’s certainly a cherished piece of family memorabilia. Moreover, even though I wasn’t present at the barbecue, I always used to see it framed and sitting on my father’s dresser. The biggest takeaway from that photograph was how happy my grandfather looked. He wasn’t wearing his glasses—no, they were sitting in his front pocket. He looked so much healthier and happier. He was even tanned in this photograph. This is exactly how he appeared to me in the dream.

After sitting down at the table, I immediately noticed that my grandfather and I were the only two people in the yard. We both stared at each other and before I even realized, he was sitting down at the table directly across from me. I didn’t speak at all in this dream, but he did.

“I’m on my way,” he uttered. What did this mean? I wondered what this was about, and the second I opened my mouth to speak, I awoke, lying on my stomach in bed. It wasn’t the most comfortable position to be in, as my head was pressed into the pillow. My windows were open from the night before, so I remember initially feeling the crisp morning air tickle the tips of my toes. I hastily tucked my feet under the comforter and looked around the room, feeling lost and bewildered. It wasn’t often where I would have a seemingly “normal,” mundane dream like the one I’d just experienced. What was this all about?

Before I could really reflect on what had just happened, I hurriedly attempted to reposition myself, as my back felt very stiff and uncomfortable. Right as I lifted myself to change positions, I looked down, only to see the very tooth that I was trying to loosen the night before, to no avail. It was out! Completely dumbfounded, I pressed my hand to my cheek and opened my mouth, feeling the newly freed-up gumline with my index finger. I just didn’t understand this at all. This tooth was barely loose… How is that even possible?!

When I looked down at my opposite hand, I started to picture the picnic table from my dream. I imagined my hands sitting on the coarse wooden surface, which prompted me to think about my grandfather. I had no insight for what it all meant, but at the time, I wasn’t really looking to know either. It was just exciting that it even happened. Being raised Catholic, I never really explored or questioned my spiritual beliefs simply because my parents wouldn’t hear of it. That is something I would never fault them for today though since they themselves were taught that once you’ve been baptized as a Catholic, you remain one forever. Moreover, Christians can’t logically support polytheism. All branches of the Christian faith, including Catholicism, are based on complete devotion to one (and only one) God.

Before I could even make the connection between losing my tooth and the dream I’d just had, my mother burst through the open doorway into my room. Her lips and chin quivered as I could see the shock and sorrow in her eyes.

“Your grandpa passed away just after midnight, Louie,” my mom said. I was so immediately overcome with grief that my stomach hurt. My grandfather had been sick for some time, and in the last few months, he got progressively worse. The whole family knew his time was coming, but even still, to this day, I don’t believe that anyone thought it was going to happen. I know most of us think the world of our grandparents, rightfully so. Nevertheless, my dad’s dad was such a cherished and loved man. In fact, he was universally loved. He had a big family that completely adored him, but he was a paragon in the community, too. A bricklayer by trade, my grandfather was a hardworking, loving, gregarious man, who served his country with pride in the Navy. Everyone absolutely loved him because he brought people together. In fact, I learned about unity through my grandfather. I am so proud to be named after him, too. It is a privilege for which I don’t feel at all worthy.

Upon hearing the news of his passing, I didn’t react the way I expected to. It was as if everything made sense to me in that moment. My grandfather visited me in my dream the morning he left his body. I realized this was my final meeting with him in this life. It wasn’t just the dream, however. I was still sitting up in bed when I leaned over my pillow to find the tooth I’d just lost. I picked it up, clutched it tightly in the palm of my hand, and closed my eyes. I knew intuitively that he paid me one final visit on his way back “home,” but that wasn’t all he did.

A perpetual prankster, Grampa loved playing jokes on all his grandkids, and I would argue that I was his preferred target because it wasn’t hard to startle or embarrass me. One of his trademark antics was to scare us into thinking that he was going to yank our baby teeth before they were ready to come out. Since I already hated losing my teeth, Grampa knew how to rile me up in front of the family. This may sound cruel, but that isn’t at all how I see it today. In fact, even back then, I caught on soon enough that he was only playing around. My tooth came out because of him. There was no pain, no blood, no indication at all that I’d lost it overnight, but I had. This was him, “stickin’ it to me” one final time.

My grandfather was the kind of man that always made me feel loved, no matter what. Strangely enough, I believe this is why he enjoyed playing tricks on the grandkids. He wanted to prove to us that even if we were uncomfortable for a minute or two, there would never be a time that we didn’t feel loved by him. He cherished every moment with us, and that’s what mattered. That’s what mattered then, and that’s what matters still.

It was this experience that first opened my eyes to the metaphysical world. Even though I was only 10, from that day forward, I had an immediate interest in anything metaphysical. I sought out books on ghosts and hauntings from my school’s library, and I would watch all the psychics on TV, like Sylvia Browne and Lisa Williams. It was never something I could talk to anyone about, for fear of being ridiculed or called out. However, when my Grampa came to me in those early morning hours, I had first-hand knowledge that we existed far beyond our human bodies. I had never ever dreamt about my grandfather until that happened. This was not some random, meaningless occurrence. I have never doubted it. Everything inside of me changed the morning that my grandfather transitioned to the other side.