I'm about to have a heart attack myself . . .

Was thinking of posting this, then decided just a few seconds ago to check the heirloom family Bible where births and deaths are recorded... Holy crap  cat! I swear, I am not making this up. This is just too freaky.

Jesse cat, you've got some 'splainin' to do.

I had a really odd dream this morning. I was watching a married couple leaving a building and walking down a long, grassy slope to a car that looked like it was from the late 40s or 50s. (I know nothing about cars of that era, so I couldn't tell you the make, model, year, etc.) It was a pleasant, sunny, summer day. Jesse cat wanders into the "viewfinder" in the dream, following the couple down toward the car. It is a totally mundane scene.

The man opens the door to let his wife in, and she turns back to look up the slope, presumably at the hosts of whatever gathering she has been attending. She waves a cheerful goodbye. From my detached vantage, I recognize her as my paternal grandmother, looking a bit younger than my earliest memory of her. And I suddenly recognize the man with her as my paternal grandfather.

I never knew my paternal grandfather. He died of a heart attack a few months before I was born. I have never missed him. From everything I've heard, he was a (sorry, grandpa, if you are watching somehow) S.O.B.

Jesse cat, whom some here have agreed may have been my parents' cat, Yankee, who was living with them when I came into the world and remained there with us for about four years, is still twining himself around their legs as I realize who this man is. (I have seen pictures, so that's how I knew who the man was.)

I wake up, startled to be dreaming about a man I never knew. Jesse Cat is not sleeping next to me on the bed, so I wasn't picking it up from him. Unless it was from a distance.... I write it off as an odd, random dream.

So at lunch, I am telling this dream to samurai. Yankee doubtless knew my paternal grandfather and grandmother. She asks if he knew Grace, my maternal grandmother, and I said he certainly did, as she spent a lot more time at my house than my other grandmother. Since my parents knew he was born on July 4 (hence the name Yankee Doodle), they must have known Yankee's mother -- maybe Grace gave him to them, or connected them to the people who owned his mother. I don't know, and there is no longer anyone alive who would know.

Samurai explains Jesse was once "talking" to her, and said, "You're more 'on' to me than anyone since Grace."

So anyway... I told her I didn't recognize the long, grassy slope down to the vintage car, and that I don't think my parents ever lived anywhere like that. It feels "beachy" somehow, though. Might they have taken their cat with them on vacation? I doubt it. Maybe it's just random scenery.

And then, I decide to post this dream here, and go check my paternal grandfather's family Bible, as I said. It was printed in 1880, and in it are recorded Gray family births, deaths, and marriages from 1882 on. I am curious as to when my paternal grandfather died.

August 30, 1954.

Fifty-two years to the day.

Anyone have any explanations for this?


Edit: Still reeling, still trying to puzzle this out. OK, my mother was not a really nice peson either, if you knew the "real" her, but just before she died, she appeared to me in my living room and her aura broke through the hard candy shell it was trapped under, and we had a sort of communion. I sensed and was held by the positive, eternal person. Is my grandfather trying to contact me to show me the same thing? I sensed no "negative" stuff from the man by the car...

I'm hoping this Edit won't influence any gut reactions you guys have... just putting it here for my own use while I'm still shivering over this all.