So my friend has this concept called the Final Gift. The Final Gift is when a loved one who has passed on comes to you in a dream and tells you whatever you need to know/hear. Ever since my grandmother died, I’ve wanted my Final Gift, but I was scared to receive it because I thought it would be the last time I saw my grandmother. After it was over, I would have nothing to look forward to.

Yesterday morning, I dreamt about my grandmother. I don’t think it’s my Final Gift though because she didn’t tell me very much. There’s got to be more than one sentence I need to hear from her, right?

This is what happened.

I was lying in bed with a man in a bedroom. For some reason, this bedroom was inside of my home church in my hometown in Pennsylvania. Standing at the foot of my bed was a woman that looked like my grandmother, but in this dream, she was my aunt. She tells me, “You need to go to church.” She says nothing about the man in my bed.

I get up to start getting dressed for church and the man tries to convince me to make love to him first. The man is older than me, about 41, but I don’t remember his face. Just that he had a thin, muscular build. I decline his offer because I know if I do that, I’m just going to want to go to sleep after, and I’ll never make it to church.

I continue getting dressed. He got out of the bed already dressed. We leave the room and walk down the hall to the sanctuary. We enter and he goes down the aisle next to the one I’m in and finds a seat. As I’m about to sit down in my row, I catch a glimpse of my grandmother in the pew in front of me, then she disappears.

I look to the right and to the left of the people sitting in front of me but can’t find my grandmother. I say, “Where’s Mom-Mom?” But then I realize I don’t see my grandmother because she’s dead.

I sit down in front of the woman who looks like my grandmother but is my aunt. As I was looking for my grandmother, this woman was watching my every move intently. I remember vividly how her eyes seemed to sear my flesh, she was watching me with such fervor. I remember how sharply her eyes darted back and forth as she watched me.

That’s it. That’s all that happened. What the fuck does it mean, people?

All I can come up with is that my aunt, who happens to be the one who told me about my grandmother’s death, is now (most likely) the matriarch of my family, and she’s the one who’s going to “take my grandmother’s place” in my life. That’s why the woman in my dream looked like my grandmother but was my aunt.

By saying, “You need to go to church,” my “grandmother aunt” probably meant this literally, but I don’t think she means I’m supposed to go there to just worship. I think it also means that church is where I’m going to find people I feel a sense of community with. A community is what I need right now. I need to be around people who know what I’ve been through and will embrace me. People who will help me as I work my way towards feeling whole again.

I have no idea what the man represents/who he is, what it means that we didn’t have sex or what it means that we didn’t sit together in church. I do remember knowing in the dream it would be inappropriate to sit with a man, who may or may not have been my boyfriend (he certainly wasn’t my husband), in front of my aunt.

Any thoughts? Is anyone out there a dream interpreter? If you have any ideas about what any of this means (feel free to disagree with the few conclusions I could draw), please let me know in the comments if you’re so inclined. Thanks in advance.