I believe in God and an afterlife. But I tend to not make much of these stories. I think it is an overactive imagination at work, and uses common symbols for the dying experience (heaven, pearly gates, etc for some, darkness for others).
These stories tell us more about the people involved, and not much about the existence of an afterlife.
I also would say on purely theological grounds, she was not in Heaven. ‘Heaven’ as we shall experience it comes only after the Second Coming and the closing of the age, when the dead are resurrected.
Right now, the dead are in some kind of beyond, but its not a beyond of real senses, likely just the illusion of senses to make the experience more pleasant.