Dreaming of Elysian Fields

I had a dream last night where I was in a cemetery.

The sky was blue, the kind of blue that you only see touched up in photos. Tombstones dotted the rolling hills, stretching far out into the distance. The stones, I seem to remember, were engraved with Hebrew, so it was clearly a Jewish cemetery. The strangest thing, besides the sheer size of the complex, was my lack of fear or trepidation. Grave yards are not, have never been, my thing.

I was standing with my family among the tombstones, apparently waiting for something. Suddenly, I saw movement in the hills. People were standing by each stone, looking around and squinting in the sun. Around me, men and women began to emerge from the graves.

Aghast, I grabbed my father, begged him for an explanation. He smiled at me and said that once a year the dead climbed out of their tomb to stand in the sun and see their families. At the end of the day, they would re-inter themselves, not to emerge for another year.

For some reason, I accepted this, no matter how strange it was. I guess it helped that the corpses I saw were fully formed with a glint of life in still-intact eyeballs. Live families were reunited with the deceased, hugs shared all around.

I met my Bubbe for the first time.

(I'm crying as I write this.)

She died from cancer before I was born. She always wanted grandchildren, but I came far too late. I've been told that I'm a lot like her in personality and habit. Before the day ended, I had met her and was reunited with my Granddad, who passed when I was four. As the sun set, the dead climbed back into their graves.

What does this dream mean? I suppose if I were more spiritual, I would have many interesting suggestion, whereas in my unenlightened state, I have none. All I know is that when I woke up, I was smiling.

I apologize for the horrendous writing in this post, but I had to get it out.

K.

PS. Bonus points for those who know what the Elysian Fields were.