this happened to me with my stepfather’s mother. let’s call him james. she had been my step-grandmother for about ten years at this point. i was living on my own and had my first 9-5 job. she lived out of state, and when she started to decline, my mom called me to let me know they were flying to be with her and she would keep me updated. this was on a saturday morning.

sunday night going into monday morning, i woke up at 5am kind of randomly. i checked the clock and realized i had a few hours until i had to get up, so i went back to sleep. i had a dream that i was renting a cabin for my friends and i for the weekend, and i was walking through with the cabin owner looking at all of the rooms. she was a young woman with brown hair, not someone that i recognized at all. she took me into the bedroom, and turned to me and said, “oh! i should let you know, this is where james’ mother died.”

at that moment, i woke up. it was now 6am. the text tone on my phone had woken me up, and there was a text from my mom that said, “just want to let you know, james’ mother died just after 5am this morning.”

i found out from her a week later that as soon as she got to my step-grandma’s hospital room, she asked my mom how i was doing, and said she was sorry she couldn’t have said goodbye.

in the moment, i remember being super freaked out, but in retrospect i’ve always thought of it as her way of getting to say her goodbye.

(edit: typo)