But what is a dream- and what is real? Three times in my father's last year, he told my brother, he woke up when he felt a nudge on his knee. And then, he said, there was an angel at the foot of the bed smiling at him. Not scary, at all, he said, but rather nice.

What he greatly feared was that the angel was warning him that his new wife was going to die, and he didn't want to be left alone again. My brother told me that his own thought was: Oh, no, Dad, this one is for you.

My father was not a fanciful man and I never heard him recount a dream.

Ebbie