reality and a dream

on the morning of 3/25, as my grandmother held his hand, my grandfather took his final breath.  with a tear in his eye and the words caught in his throat, he finally rested after months of the kind of pain that comes only with being old.  he wasn't sick.  just 87.  it was a long week and i'm grateful that my family is extraordinary in the way that we know how to comfort each other, say the right things, and hold each other up.  I'm glad for the S.O. making it down after i made my way back up from Iowa city, just after leaving from easter weekend.  having him there, holding my hand, made it a little more tolerable.

last night i dreamed my other grandfather was also dying when in reality he died when i was almost 6.  i have faint memories of him, of being allowed to scamper along the counters and raid the cupboards for whatever breakfast we wanted.  we have many pictures of him as well, which seems to have led to a very vivid dream where he was 'going fast', the nurses said, and we had to get to the funeral home.  he was lying in his casket, waiting to die.  i asked him why and he smiled up at me and said he wanted to get comfortable before moving on.  he knew me.  recognized me.  we all waited in the pews, he'd twitch a leg, and we'd wait a little longer.  then he'd get up and come sit by us.  reassuring us that he was going to be ok. and that we would too. 

it was a strange and beautiful dream all at once but all i could think when i woke up is 'no way work is gonna buy i've got another dead grandfather to bury the week after the last'...  and with that sigh of relief i remembered the details more clearly and am somehow glad for them.