For a while, I was skeptical about loved ones visiting you and sending you messages in your dreams. I am a fairly realistic person and that was one thing that just did not seem possible until it happened to me.

With the loss of my grandfather, it has been tough to adjust to life without him. I did not make it back to New Jersey in time to say my proper goodbyes to him and that has been something that I have been struggling with. I yearn for closure every day. I always think to myself how I should have flown home from school as soon as I found out he was in the hospital. Hindsight is definitely 20/20 because I was too late.

A few nights ago, I experienced a dream that was unlike any other. Normally, my dreams are from an outsider perspective looking in; however, in this dream, I was fully engaged and it was vivid and beyond realistic. My dream felt as though it was reality and waking up from it felt as though real life was actually a dream.

After experiencing this dream, I researched “visitation dreams” and upon reading what people had to say about these dreams, it occurred to me that there was a good chance that I had an experience with one.

In my dream, I was walking out of a restaurant, that happened to be my grandpa’s favorite spot. Upon exiting, my grandpa was sitting in the booth near the door. He looked so healthy, and he was breathing without oxygen. I sat next to him and said, “Hey, Pop, I miss you.” He didn’t say a word, he simply just nodded, sipped his beer, then pointed to an empty place setting next to me. I looked next to me and saw the place setting that had an empty beer glass. I then looked back at him. He stood up, finished his beer, placed the empty beer glass on the table in front of him, then said to me, “I am always by your side.” Then I woke up.

I woke up comforted and with more closure than I went to sleep with. I like to believe that these types of dreams are really your loved ones coming through to send you messages. What I do know for sure is my grandpa lives through the memories we have shared and the lessons he has taught me growing up. I know for sure that I was blessed to have him in my life for as long as I did. Even though my life is really just getting started, I know he will somehow be there for the rest of it, until we meet again.