So first, let's begin with my bad dream. It's not totally related to the life and death part of this post, however, it does deal with death, so I guess it's kinda relevant if unrelated.
I often have extremely vivid dreams. However, I have never actually cried in my sleep. But early this morning, J softly woke me up and told me that I was having a bad dream. It seems that I was sobbing out loud. I wiped the tears from my face and blew my nose. I had really been crying hard, which kinda surprised me.
What was I dreaming? Well, it's a long dream, and most of it is irrelevant, so I'll just skip to the part where I started crying... I was standing in my Grandpa's kitchen. I dreamt that he had just died a few months earlier, but no one had cleaned his house out yet. I was going through his cupboards and fridge. A jar of maple syrup from his friend's sugar bush - always a staple at Grandpa's house - sat still full in the refrigerator door. The vegetables brought in from his garden were rotting. The crusty bread he always liked to buy was going moldy. His cold cuts had gone bad. He was no longer alive to either consume this food or clean out his fridge and cupboards. He was dead, and all I could do was cry. Weird, huh?
A side note: In reality my grandpa died almost 5 years ago. He moved into a senior's residence years before he passed away, although his house is a reoccurring setting in many of my dreams. Sometimes I'm renting it out, other times I'm discovering new rooms that I didn't know existed, etc. It's not unusual for me to dream about being there, but for some reason this dream impacted me in a different way. My Grandpa was my most favourite person in the whole world. A rare and special soul who I've written about in the past.
Anyhow, when J woke me up, I was just exhausted, and couldn't really choke out what I had dreamt. It still affected me. I felt completely drained, instead of well-rested.  Fortunately, for the most part I've managed to shake it off throughout the day.
J admitted that he had a really bad dream too. He dreamt that Bro and SIL lost the baby. Ugh. That's a horrible thought.... especially since SIL miscarried earlier this year.
SIL was due on Dec. 10th, but still hasn't had the baby yet. If she doesn't have it this week, they'll induce her on the 17th - a day before J's birthday. I'm sure the baby will be perfectly fine, I just hope for her sake she has it soon. I hear that getting induced isn't a fun experience.
Needless to say, every time the phone rings, we're always expecting it to be "the news."
Speaking of expecting phone calls, we're also waiting for another piece of not-so-nice news. J's Grandma A is being moved into a hospice today. This week has been filled with one bad thing after another for the poor woman. First, her lungs filled with fluid again, but when they tried to drain them, all the doctor could drain was blood, so he stopped as a precaution. He didn't want to risk collapsing one of her lungs.  Then they reportedly found a second spot of cancer on her lung and one on her liver. AND THEN she had a bad fall at the senior's residence, which put her in a lot of pain. They don't expect it to be long... of course, her doctor was saying that when he discovered the first spot of cancer earlier this summer. In any case, she's staying in as best spirits as she can, but waiting for the inevitable is pretty grim.  
I have to say that this feels like a very weird Christmas season this year. Waiting for a birth. Waiting for a death. All this other stuff consumes so much mindshare that it's hard to really get into the spirit. Well, at least we got some real snow yesterday... snow that's going to stay for a little while. In fact, it hasn't stopped snowing since! It's a total white-out outside. I know I was wishing for a white Christmas, but this is crazy! It's a real winter wonderland out there. 
Right now J has Christmas carols playing as he works on his animated card. And as I listen to Bing Crosby sing "Let it Snow", I think I might wrap a few more gifts. Something to do to keep ourselves busy as we wait for the phone to ring.