[MayflowerMadam]

My dad was a pastor and has been at the bedside of many people when they died. Often, just as a person was passing, some would open their eyes and seem to look beyond what was happening around them, and some would smile as if they recognized someone, some would speak a phrase, and some would do both.

[chimera]

That kind of jibes with what my Dad did when he died. I was at his bedside in his final hours. He was not responsive, was propped up in his bed to relieve pressure on his back. He started making "reaching" movements with his one arm a few minutes before he passed. Then he used both arms in a reaching outward motion. The nurses said they'd seen this before in other patients at near-death. They said it was a kind of "climbing out" of the body.

After he was gone and I was on the way home it occurred that maybe those were embracing motions, greeting people he knew when they were meeting him as he crossed over. I don't know, but it seems as likely as any other explanation, at least for those of us who believe in life after this earthly one is completed.