No Offense, Grandma

By Sharon Fuentes

Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions.

~Edgar Cayce

I was twelve years old when my maternal grandmother passed away. The day we buried her was the very first time I saw my mother cry. Unable to deal with all the raw emotions, I retired to my room and hoped that sleep would bring me comfort. But it brought me far more than that. It brought me back Grandma Ruthie.

She came wearing the baby blue dress with the rose corsage that I had always seen her wear in the picture on my mother's bedside table. She sat at the edge of my bed and said nothing at first, as if she was waiting to see how I would react. I was scared of course and thought I must be dreaming. Perhaps I was. My grandmother told me that she was okay. She told me it was okay to laugh and to keep doing the things I usually do, as life goes on. She told me to be kind to my mother and to understand that she is doing the best that she can. And just as I was warming up to the idea that this was real, that I could ask her questions about what it was like on the other side, that she could explain to me what really happens, she was gone.

The next day I tried to tell my mother what happened but she was far too immersed in her own grief to hear of such nonsense. So I said nothing more of it to anyone.

I honestly did not give much thought to that incident until many years later. I was married and pregnant with my first child when my paternal grandmother passed on. I was sitting with my older sister sharing memories of all the wonderful times we had with our lively and mischievous Grandma Gertie. We laughed as we remembered her playful spirit. It was then that my sister nonchalantly mentioned how she hoped she would not visit her, the way Grandmother Ruthie had so many years earlier. I was shocked and asked her what she meant. She then proceeded to tell the story of how our grandmother had visited her that night so many years ago too. She described her wearing the exact same dress as I saw her wear and how she spoke the same words she had said to me.

The thought then came to us that perhaps Grandmother Gertie, who had just passed on, would try to pay us a visit as well. We both were a bit freaked out by this. Although I wanted to know that our grandmother was fine, I honestly did not think I could handle her visiting me. After all I was very, very pregnant. My sister joked that she did not want her to come to her either. We laughed and said into the air, "Grandma if you are listening... no offense but please go visit someone else." I had no dreams or nighttime visit that night and neither did my sister.

The next morning the two of us received a phone call from our cousin who lived out of town and was unable to come to our grandmother's funeral. She told us of a very weird dream she had the night before and how Grandma Gertie had come to tell her she was okay. She laughed as she said she did not understand the next part of her dream. "She told me to tell you both that you are chicken and that Sharon... I know you did not want to know, but you are having a boy, so there!" She then went on to say how real the dream was. My sister and I knew better but said nothing. That day we went shopping for baby boy clothes because we were positive that I was indeed having a boy... which I did!

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