Okay, so I know there’s been a huge lapse in my posting recently, but I just HAD to get this down.
I just woke up from a dream. In my dream, I was driving along “the Golden Mile” with YeYe. I knew that that’s what it was, however, instead of rambling mansions, there were graveyards/cemeteries. I remember distinctly that one of the driveways had a white, decorative wooden archway across it which looked like it had sunk halfway into the ground, but underneath it, there were two bouquets of flowers side by side in the dirt, like dual grave plots.
Despite the fact that we appeared to be surrounded by graves, it wasn’t scary. I had a roadtrip-type feeling. The sun was out, blue skies…it kinda felt like we were driving through the open country. We were in YeYe’s old navy Toyota Cressida (not the silver Mitsubishi he had just before he passed away but the older car which I remembered him having my whole life) and he was driving while I sat beside him in the passenger seat.
I was telling him that I would make an index of all his songs, like he had been trying to do for ages (he would listen to all the classic radio stations and records songs he liked direct from radio onto cassette tape, so he didn’t really have any idea what song was on which tape). Leaning towards him, I said, “It will be a birthday present.”
He was shaking his head and then pointed past me out the passenger window and said, “New car.” (Of course in my dream, we were conversing easily in english). I whipped around but it seemed like the car had already passed. Turning back to him, I eyed him suspiciously and said, “Wait…how do I know this is real? You should drive back around and show me that there is a new car there. If I am just imaginging you, then there is no way I could have known there was a new car there because I had my back facing the window.”
Patiently, he turned the car around and stopped across from a cemetery, pointing out the window again into the distance. “See there?”
Squinting, I could see that there was a car half obscured by a large headstone, however, it was too far away for me to determine whether or not it was new.
Then I woke up.
As I was puzzling over the dream, wondering about the strange content…
I realised that yesterday was my grandfather’s birthday.
Most of you will probably think this is tosh and say that I subconsciously knew (which could be true) but I totally forgot that it was my grandpa’s birthday yesterday until I woke up from that dream, wondering why I was talking to him about birthday presents. Also, I feel that the whole “new car” thing at the end was a deliberate attempt to counter the natural skepticism I would’ve woken up with, like he was trying to show me that the dream was indeed real. The cemetery thing could also indicate his current setting; I think if I were to just have a normal dream about him, I would associate him more strongly with other settings which I had seen him in for years in life (eg. his bedroom or his unit) rather than something so morbid and (relatively) new.
Finally – although I neglected to post about it here – this is not the first time I have believed that my grandfather visited me in dreams. I think exactly a year after he first passed away, I had a dream about him. That was also weird because I didn’t consciously recognise that it was a year later. Unfortunately, as I did not write it down, I don’t recall the details…but I remember it was a nice, comforting, “I’m okay” kinda dream.
Well…I hope that’s true.
Sorry I forgot your b’day, YeYe. And thanks for the subtle reminder.
