A Sad Dream

As I sit here at work staring at the screen, I can't help but feel a little absurd writing this. Anyway here is a little background on myself: Hello, my name is Tanner. I am a disciple and a believer and follower of Jesus Christ and of God. I have had a fascination with the paranormal since I was a child and have had several experiences myself. I am someone who likes to think critically and does not blindly follow the thoughts and beliefs of others and firmly believe it is the duty of an individual to think critically and do the necessary research to back one's claims. That, however, is harder to do with the paranormal but think these websites are great tools to help us see the experiences of those around us. I treat my relationship with God in the same way. I do not do things simply because a religion says so but follow what is said in the bible. I am like the Berean Jews in Acts 17:10-11.

Anyway, I gave a background on that because I believe the two are so related it's impossible to separate the two. I don't know how the spiritual realm works but it would seem impossible to include my stories with the paranormal without first mentioning my relationship with God.

As a child, I had a grandfather who was very loving to me and spoiled me in many ways. I would eagerly look forward to being able to spend time with him and have many great memories of watching the show "The Price is Right" like clockwork at 11 am. My grandfather was a gentle man who seemed to have gotten very religious, like many do, in the last years of his life.

My grandfather and grandmother split up before I was born and after their 5 grown children were out of the house. According to my relatives, my grandfather had a tendency to be a hard man as a father. Even my grandfather admitted these things and told stories of his terrible temper and how he was often cold and an unaffectionate father. I was shocked to learn these things as he was such a loving and wonderful grandfather.

Unfortunately, it would seem that my father picked up some of this anger from my grandfather. My father is an extremely loving and caring man who, 99% of the time, is wonderful to be around and is able to control his anger. There are times though where he reacts to things with emotion and anger and will lash out in an extreme way. It was never physically abusive or anything of that nature and he would always apologize after he had some time to cool off. My father has a soft heart underneath the walls he has built. I give this background to set up the story.

Once when I was young my grandfather was staying with my family and I due to just having surgery. My dad had gotten angry at me about something, went overboard making me cry and causing tension in the house. After it was done my grandfather looked at me with obvious sorrow in his eyes and said something to the affect of "Son, I take responsibility that your father is that way. He learned his anger and lack of patience from me. I am sorry". That statement of responsibility and sorrow has always stuck out in my mind. I will never forget it.

Several years later, I believe in 2003, my grandfather suffered a massive heart attack and passed away. It was devastating to my family and really hard on my dad. I was only around 12 at the time but still felt profound sadness. But as time passed so did my grief and I would think of him time to time.

One night years later when I was 17 I had a dream about my grandfather that I will never forget. In this dream I was in the parking lot of a popular retail chain that shall not be named. It was snowing and the snow was at least a foot deep. I was with my father and my best friend (let's call him Johnny). In the dream I was my age (17) and so was my friend Johnny but we were acting like children.

Johnny and I ran ahead of my dad through the sliding glass doors into the store. Somehow (even though it doesn't make a lot of sense) a large pile of snow had accumulated on the top of the door and once the two sections of the door parted, a large pile of snow fell on a little old lady who was entering behind me (yeah, just like those cliché moments in the movies). My dad was furious and proceeded to cuss me out in front of a large group of people. It was embarrassing but I shrugged it off and ran off with my friend Johnny to the back of the store.

Now Johnny and I were certainly of the age where playing with toys would be considered slightly inappropriate and even moreso opening said toys in a retail store and blatantly playing with them when we hadn't purchased them. Anyway we sat down at one of those colorful plastic tables that you have when you are a kid that are yellow and red and have little bench seats and are one solid piece (if you don't know what I'm talking about imagine a small plastic picnic table with attached seating). We were sitting at one of these and building Legos. He was sitting diagonally from me so that the spot to my left and across from me were vacant.

I realized after a few minutes of building and looking down that there was someone sitting across from me. I realized my friend Johnny was gone and in fact the entirety of the store was dead quiet. I slowly looked up taking in the details of the person sitting across from me. It was a man wearing a brown blazer jacket and beige shirt, both looking rough and dirty. It was my grandfather. He sat there seemingly looking at me.

I will never forget this image. We have all had scary dreams before and know what they feel like during and after but this one was different. It was a real as you reading this right now. There sat my grandfather with his jaw cocked to the side and his mouth agape and slack jawed. Where his eyes should have been were gaping sockets with a stream of blood trickling down his face. A feeling of extreme sadness and regret washed over me like a wave and I heard distinctly in my grandfather's voice which I hadn't heard in years these words "I am sorry".

I knew immediately that he was referring to my dad's reaction earlier at the front of the store. As soon as he had finished that statement I woke in my bed freezing cold in the middle of the summer crying hysterically.

I am not one to take dreams has hard evidence of the paranormal. I am not one to blindly believe the feelings someone has saying they get that "creepy feeling". I know what I experienced that night was my grandfather. How it happened I'm not sure and I doubt I'll know until the day I meet God. You can believe this story or not and I know it's easy to read the stories on here and think they are either made up or overreactions to explainable things. But this did happen.

And this was just the first, and most tame, of the several paranormal things that have happened to me.