I started a job last fall driving the “safe-ride” shuttle on weekend nights at Bates College. What I immediately experienced is how polite and grateful all the students are to have this service.

Recently, I had a very pleasant encounter. I was transporting a female student from India across campus and she asked me how my mother was. Surprised, I asked how she knew my mother.

She said she had volunteered at the nursing home where my mother spent her last months and had seen me there on her floor. I told her that my mom made her transition a couple of years ago and she said, “Oh, I’m sorry.” I told her she had a long and happy life and, at 98, she was ready for a new one.

When she asked me how I did after my mother’s leaving, I told her about a dream I’d had a month later, on Thanksgiving, where I witnessed dad stepping from his wheelchair and becoming young as he descended stairs into an elegant ballroom where Mom was visiting the various tables, also young again, with her perfect dark hair, smiling and asking people if they were enjoying themselves.

The student asked me if it was a dream I had during the day, or at night — something I didn’t expect. I told her it was during the night. She told me that, in her faith, dreams like that were a message from God.

That young Hindu student made my day.

Paul Baribault, Lewiston