I saw the notification on Facebook and it stopped me cold. Suddenly I remembered a snippet of a dream … from last night? Two nights before? I didn’t know.

I had a large high school graduating class, just over 500. I couldn’t make it to last year’s 30th reunion and haven’t seen any of my classmates since 1981, when my family moved 500 miles north between my junior and senior years. Occasionally, though, people pop up in dreams, sometimes juxtaposed with people from my college years or current life, whom they are unlikely to meet otherwise, or in reality.

It also has been a slightly busy time, as one classmate just died and another who was murdered will have her case reopened.

So in this snippet I am sitting I don’t even know where, likely at some reunionlike event. To my left is the person who invited me there. To my immediate right is someone I’ll just call Dara, and her sister I’ll call Renee is on her other side. My friend reintroduces me to Dara and Renee, and that is all I recall.

Fast forward to tonight, when I saw a friend request show up on Facebook. This doesn’t happen often, as I only connect to “in real life” friends.

It was Dara.

I was almost in tears. Significant? How? We were never great friends, just classmates, and with someone dying, more people than usual were likely to be clicking around and having classmates pop up as suggested connections.

But out of a class of more than 500, the one person who shows up in my dream is the one who contacts me?