re: Woke up in tears over a dream

A year or so after my dad passed I had a dream that I was in a big auditorium waiting for a show to start. Saw some guy sitting a few rows ahead of me that looked kinda like my dad. When he turned his head to the side slightly I suddenly realized it WAS my dad! I remember running up to him incredulously exclaiming, “Dad, Dad - is it REALLY you??… It CAN’T be you - you’re dead!” He just looked and me, laughed and said “Yes, it’s me.” To which I again stupidly repeated, “But, but, but…you’re DEAD!”. He calmly replied, “Yes, I am”. I then remember saying, “I can’t believe it!! Tell me all about everything Dad, what’s it like…what’s it like to be dead?”. He replied: “I can’t tell you much, but I can say that it is not at ALL how you think it is - it is completely different than that - but believe me, it IS absolutely AMAZING!”. I then glanced around to see if anybody else was also hearing/seeing this crazy encounter, but everyone looked like nothing out of the ordinary was going on. When I turned back to dad to ask him some more questions, he was gone. I started crying then and pleading, “Dad please come back - there is still SO much more I want to ask and talk to you about!”. But he didn’t reappear. And at was at that point that I promptly woke up??. I’ve never had that dream or anything really that vivid since - and that was many, many years ago. Always wondered if it was just one of those weird dreams that are so realistic they seem true - or if maybe somehow my dad DID find a way to come back and visit me then? If so, I could never figure out the logic in it - I mean, why would he wait a whole year or so after his death before returning, instead of coming earlier in the grieving process to “comfort” and reassure me in the early days when I really needed it, instead of showing up at some apparently random moment in my life? But regardless of the reason, the dream was so realistic that to this day many years later I still vividly recall it in almost perfect detail.