I got the call in the afternoon before her death that evening. My mother called me at work to say that the doctor said she wouldn’t make it much longer.

That night I dreamed (or was it a dream?) of my grandmother with my other grandmother who had passed on years before. They were sitting in chairs beside a swimming pool, looking happy (much more than they had in life), smiling at me. A peaceful song a roommate of mine played often could be heard all around me.

I awakened the next morning to my mother’s phone call that she had indeed died in the course of the night, as had been predicted. I should have felt immense grief at our family’s loss, but the experience I had (whatever it was) had left me feeling that we’d had a peaceful goodbye; and that my grandmother would never want any of us feeling sad for her, because she had gone on to a better place.