I've seen a number of strange things. Some I could explain away as my imagination, or tinnitus, or other things, but this one, I have no other explanation.

I had stayed up stupidly late that night, to the point that the sun was rising when I went to bed. I was in a deep sleep when I suddenly woke up a few hours later, around 9 am. I wasn't groggy or anything, it was like a switch being flipped. One moment I'm asleep, the next, eyes snap open and I'm 100% awake, as though I hadn't been asleep at all a moment earlier.

I'm a bit baffled, but figure there was some noise or something, and so I flip over to my other side, intending to snuggle into my pillow and go back to sleep. But as I moved, I saw it.

A large, shapeless black mass at the foot of my bed.

I froze in place, staring at it. I didn't sense any hostility, nor any fear, which you'd expect if you suddenly see something like that in front of you. It was just "watching" me. Unintentionally, I called out to it after a few moments, and just as I did so, it winked out of existence.

I stared at where it was for a few more moments before slumping back into bed with a grumble of "must've been my imagination." I tried to get back to sleep, but a few minutes later, my mom knocks at my door. As soon as I heard the first knock, I knew.

The word that I unintentionally called out to the shadow was "...dad?"

My mother had just received a call that my father, who was already on the decline, had stopped breathing for a period. He had resumed breathing, but he was on his way out at this point, and passed away two days later.

Its a cliche, I know, but I do believe my father appeared before me that morning. He and I had been at odds in the last few years of his life, before his mind shattered from dementia, and I think it was his way of trying to make amends. It helped, it really did, and I realized just how much I loved him before he left us.