When the dead visit your dreams

So I saw my grandad, we were living in a different house, he was presumably staying with us. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be an issue were it not for the fact that 1. He is dead and 2. we lived a few thousand miles apart since I was 6. On the summers I met him though, and on the walks we enjoyed together he was the best grandad you could ever wish for. He didn’t have much for lavishing me with gifts, but I was always welcome at theirs, and from him I received the greatest gifts of all, his time, attention, a model for good behaviour and so many happy memories.

In the dream, he walked down the stairs, sat halfway and it sounded like he was muttering something to himself, he was frail and hard of hearing, but I’d never seen him talk to himself. The amateur brain specialist in me diagnosed him with a few dozen illnesses before he got to the bottom of the stairs, where we started talking and ordered pizza.

Part of me is glad he met my wife, part of me is glad I saw him a year before he died. Part of me is glad we could still Skype on occasion.

But most of all I’m glad I never saw him in the throes of a long illness. He died peacefully in 2015, just before I got married.

Miss you Baba Reza.