My dream shocked me. No I didn’t have a nightmare full of monsters and ghosts out to get me. I had a dream about my long lost friend.

When I opened my eyes I felt weird as this was someone I had not met for years. And suddenly, after 10 years or so, I see him in dreams.

In the bathroom I splashed cold water on my face. It was just a dream, I said to myself. But it was so real that even when I was wide awake, I could not get over it.

He was hugging me, bidding me goodbye... and I could almost feel the warmth of his arms as he held me tight.

It is just a dream and there is nothing to get so disturbed about, I consoled myself.

But my mind wandered back to those days when we had been friends, laughed, chatted and fought. Yes, we had had a fight and from that day on we had acted like complete strangers with each other. And we had never made the effort to patch up.

But I wanted to go back to the days when we had been friends.

I opened my drawer and took out the photograph, which I had sworn I would never look at again. There we were, two friends smiling without a care into the camera.

Suddenly I found myself sobbing. I opened my phone book and dialled his number.

Then I got the news. My friend was no more.

His funeral was the saddest day of my life.

My friend had come to say his final farewell in my dream. Call these signs or miracles, but these certainly leave us speechless. And I received another sign — a letter written to me by my friend before his death saying that he was sorry.