Grandpa's Hello

Last December, my grandpa passed away after being in the hospital for 6 months with an aneurysm on his aorta. Our family was devastated, especially my mom, who was very close to my grandpa.

About a week after my grandpa passed away, my mom said that she would wake up to hearing a dove at her window. She said that everyday for about 2 weeks, the same dove came to her window. After a while, my mom told my cousin and I about her dove encounter. Unusually, my cousin confessed to of seeing the same dove. A month after my grandpa's passing, my mom, my brother and I went to visit my grandma who lives about 6 hours away. We were doing our best to clear out some of my grandpa's old things when my grandma came across a small sculpture. Ironically it was a sculpture that my grandpa has been intending to give to my mom for her 37th birthday.

When my mom received it, the first thing she noticed was the sculpture was of a little girl holding 3 doves. Of course this upset my mom, knowing that the dove's were probably his way of saying hello.

Not long after the dove encounters, I had a dream that I was on what looked to be like a large farmland. In the middle of the farm was a huge oak tree with an enormous white house next to it. In the dream, I was walking with an unknown little boy who was telling me that he was very sick and wasn't supposed to be outside. He led me into the the white house (keep in mind this is still in my dream), and we opened the door and my grandpa was standing right there, looking as healthy as ever. He asked how my grandma, uncle, and especially how my mom was. I started crying telling him how everything was falling apart without him, and he just gave me a hug, told me he loved me and to tell everyone how much he missed and loved them. He shut the door and that was it to the dream.

I was telling my mom and grandma about it, and how I didn't recognize the white house when my grandma said that by the way I described it, it sounded like my great-great-grandma cunningham's house. This was my grandpas favorite grandma and ironically, he used to joke about how when he died that the first place he'd go to was to his grandma cunningham's.

Since the dream and the dove encounter, we have a had our little strange occurrences here and there. Just like setting something down, and coming back for it a few minutes later and not being able to find it. The funny thing was my mom always had this hat, an antique hat, that sat at the end of her bed, but when we would leave the room, the hat would be off the bed and onto the dressing table.

Of course all of us still miss my grandpa like crazy, but knowing that he's around all the time, is very comforting.