I am so loving hearing these stories from Aries and best Bubby. I have posted before in the CR, my own experiences when my parents O”H were niftar. My father, then my mom five months later, both unexpectedly passed away. During the shiva week for my father Z”L, my siblings and I all spent Shabbos in different place, they in their respective homes, and I stayed with my mother. We all took Shabbos afternoon naps, and each one of us, as we discovered when they came back to sit shiva with us on Motzai Shabbos, had the IDENTICAL dream about my father. In the dream(s), he appeared to us in exactly the same way, in the same room, and said the exact same dialogue (very specific, not just a generic, “I’ll always be with you, take care of each other,” type of expression) to each of us, telling us how happy he was (kept saying it over and over), even though he missed us, that he could not remain in his body the way it was, and he was with his Mama and Papa and his brothers, and was very, very happy. He also told us he wished he could stay, but he couldn’t and then he walked to the arched doorway of the living room and stepped through it saying goodbye and disappeared. We each saw the scenario exactly the same way (with minor differences in my father’s age and the clothes he was wearing), and when we compared notes after Shabbos (by which time my mom and I had already been flabbergasted to discover our own dreams were the same), my youngest brother was the only one with one addition that the rest of us did not have. My father told him that is was shoen tzeit to wake up, because it was mincha time. When he woke up instantly at that, there was suddenly a knock at his bedroom door, with my sister-in-law letting him know he had to get to shul for mincha.
I think it is absolutely amazing when Hashem allows us the zechus of really saying goodbye to our loved ones. It helps to give us some closure and a real sense of peace, when we understand that this is not the end, and that wherever they are in Gan Eden, it is beautiful and they are truly happy there. We were zocheh to MANY simanim of this type during the shiva week, some of them hilariously funny (like the lights all going off in the middle of one shiva evening with a houseful of menachamei aveil, it being funny because my dad was known for screwing up the Shabbos clock, and the lights always went off at the most awkward times on Friday night, no matter what he did) and they truly helped us to get through the most challenging and sad times of our lives. And we most humbly thank HaKodosh Boruch Hu for that chessed.