10 Happy Moments That Remind Us Honoring the Loved Ones We’ve Lost Can Be an Act of Kindness

I went to sleep with my bedroom window open. That night I dreamed my late grandma kept telling me, “Wake up and close the window.” I woke up and closed it. Next morning my mom was calling 911, “There’s a ladder leaning against my son’s window that isn’t ours.” Someone had been walking the neighborhood that night, trying doors and windows one by one, and mine was the only one on our whole street that had been locked in time.

Police said the same ladder had been used at two other houses in the block, both left partway open for the summer heat. I hadn’t thought twice about closing that window, half-asleep, still half inside the dream, my grandmother’s voice clearer in my head than my own thoughts. She’d been gone three years by then, and I hadn’t dreamed about her once since she passed, not until that exact night.

I don’t know what to call it beyond what it was. I just know I closed a window I never would’ve thought to close on my own, at the exact moment it apparently mattered most, and the only reason I did was a voice I hadn’t heard in three years telling me to get up.

My grandfather taught me to fish every summer growing up, endlessly patient even when I was terrible at it. He passed away the spring before I turned eighteen. That June, I dreamed of him, pointing to the same spot he always did, saying the fish run deep there this time of year. Went there the next morning half out of grief. Caught the biggest fish of my life, first cast.

My son passed at nineteen. On what would’ve been his twenty-first birthday, I dreamed of him in our backyard, grinning the exact way he used to when he’d gotten away with something as a kid. He said, “Go check the shed, Mom. I left something for you.” I went out there half expecting nothing. Found an old shoebox of his I’d completely forgotten about, full of letters he’d written to himself about who he wanted to become. Read every single one that morning and cried my heart out. I miss him so much.

My coworker and closest work friend passed unexpectedly during a stretch when I was seriously considering quitting my job over burnout. I dreamed of her at her old desk a few weeks later, saying, “Don’t leave because of the bad days. Leave when the good ones stop happening too.” I stayed. Got promoted eight months later. Keep her old coffee mug on my own desk now, never use it, just keep it there.

My childhood dog passed away the same month I lost my job, two griefs tangled together in a way that made neither one easier to process separately. I dreamed of him running through our old backyard, same as always, and he just sat down in front of me and stayed there, tail wagging, no words needed from either of us. Woke up calmer than I’d felt in weeks. Adopted a rescue dog from the shelter three weeks later. Named him after the backyard we used to play in together.

My uncle taught me to change a car’s oil the summer I turned sixteen, patient through every mistake I made trying to learn it. He passed away before I ever got the chance to teach my own kid the same thing. Last month, changing oil in my driveway with my son watching, I swear I heard my uncle’s exact voice in my head, same phrase he always used, “Righty tighty, don’t overthink it.” Said it out loud without meaning to. My son asked who taught me that. Told him about his great-uncle for the first time that afternoon.

My mom passed during a year I was struggling financially enough that I couldn’t afford to fly home. To this day, I’ve never fully forgiven myself for it. On the one-year mark, I dreamed she was sitting on my old childhood porch, said, “I know why you couldn’t come. I was there anyway, in the only way that mattered.” Woke up and finally opened a savings account specifically for flying home every year going forward, no matter what. I visit her every single anniversary now.