Beyond Goodbye: Are shared-death experiences real?

cnn ^ | December 26, 2014 | John Blake

[NYer]

William Peters was working as a volunteer in a hospice when he had a strange encounter with a dying man that changed his life.

The man

[Grateful2God]

Hi, Rooster,

94 years old! What a blessing! And yet, there never is an easy time to see a parent pass. May God give you strength and peace, and all the graces you need to take care of your Mom until the time God calls her home!

God bless you and your family!

[RoosterRedux]

Thx Laz.

I'm pretty burned out...and the stress is unbelievable.

But it is a blessing to be able to be there for her.

I appreciate your support.

[RoosterRedux]

Thx so much for your kind words.

She's a tough cookie but getting near the end of the road.

I am excited for her re: what comes next. But for now we are focused on the present.

Again...thx so much for your kind words. It means a great deal at a time like this.

[Grateful2God]

Thank you, everyone, for sharing your thoughts, experiences, feelings: I lost three cousins and an aunt this year... this was a lovely, kind and consoling thread!

God bless all, and all those whom you love!

[holden]

Twelve years ago, when my son was a week short of turning two, my mother had been living with us for a few months. She slept on the floor above where my son slept, where my wife's and my bedroom was, as well. Mom had had multiple strokes, and had been in therapy for several months before we brought her to live with us. It was clear she loved my son and he returned that, sharing in her appreciation of him.

At roughly 4:30 on the morning of December 18th, I heard my son get out of his crib (a first, ever) and move quickly past our open bedroom door. I got out of bed to follow him, wherever he was headed, but I heard that he was making his way up the carpeted stairs.

At the top of those stairs I caught up with him. He'd never done that before, in the night or in the day, but he was quick, moving with apparent purpose. If he'd've gone another six feet, he would've been at my mother's door, could've opened it and possibly awakened her, I thought. Better to let her sleep. Ha! I brought the lad back to his crib, admonished him to go back to sleep and did likewise.

When the home health care worker arrived about 7:30am, she found my mother had already passed, though not too long before, maybe a few hours.

I think my son and mother shared something, perhaps particularly that morning, but perhaps more than can be captured with words. I don't know how that works, but he never again made such a trek.

HF

[Salvation]

Corporal Works of Mercy

[CyberAnt]

Why is it ODD ..??

If God created the universe (which HE did) .. it should be a given that evidence of life would be found.

And .. science has now begun to believe that such evidence exists. While they may not be what we would consider “fingerprints”, they certainly are tidbits of life left behind.

Amazing ..!!

[representativerepublic]

Rooster,

I know the feeling. I lost my father almost three weeks ago. He was 91. He too was with hospice care, had to use a walker, had other medical issues. I found him on the floor of his apartment after he had fallen going from the bathroom to his bedroom and broke his other hip (he had already had one hip replacement). He refused to live in an aclf or have a live-in caretaker.

While he was in the hospital, a couple of days before his death, he said he had a talk with his father. My grandfather has been dead for 30+ years.

[avenir]

This idea is very potent for me in cinema (whereas in real life I have a taboo of "speaking to the dead"). This scene in ANDREI RUBLEV, where Andrei has an interesting conversation with the murdered Theophanes, is very memorable. Theophanes tells Andrei—who killed a man to prevent a rape, and is remorseful—“God will forgive you, but you should not forgive yourself. You will forever walk between God’s forgiveness and divine torment.”

Tarkovsky's films deal beautifully with life and death and memory.

[defconw]

I don’t know if this is the same thing. But when I was 15 we had just returned from my grandmother’s(mom’s side). We got inside the phone rang, and I knew that my grandfather had died(dad’s side). There is no way I should have known that. We had seen him the previous day and he was fine. But when the phone rang, I knew.

[butterdezillion]

What a touching story. I bet they did share something indescribable.

When my daughter died in my womb as we prepared to induce labor my body shook and I knew she had died. Almost like my soul was cut in two and one half had to go on without the other. A friend of mine later said she had experienced the same thing when her child was stillborn.

Our daughter died on Jan 12, 1993. That Christmas had been spent preparing for her birth so Christmas and Januaries have always been bittersweet for me since then. Even when I’m not consciously thinking about it, the melancholy sinks in and I remember why I’m sad. It’s like my body remembers, always.

A sword pierced Mary’s heart, as she lost her Son so my longings to be with my daughter and yours to be with your mother (and all our other loved ones) can be fulfilled through His death. It’s all bitter and sweet, all together. As the Christmas carol says, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee (Bethlehem) tonight.” Life and death is all kind of rolled into one, with both joy and sorrow tied into all of it.

I don’t know if that makes sense.

[NYer]

Fascinating story. Thanks for sharing it.

[steve86]

She thinks it was his way of telling her, “Don’t mourn, I’m with you.”

Seems like it would be a very bad thing if the soul of the deceased was still "with you".

[ADemocratNoMore]

Just to add to the many first hand accounts here, my dad was in a nursing home, 94 years old. One day I got a call in the early evening, the staff reporting that he was unresponsive and that he was dying. I kept vigil through much of the next day. Although mostly in a state resembling a deep sleep, occasionally Dad would turn in his bed a little and when he did I would try to talk to him. On one occasion when I said “I love you Dad” he squeezed my hand and I knew he was saying the same thing back to me. He passed a few hours later.

Mom & Dad have both been back on a few occasions since their passing, mostly in the first months after they died, not as “ghosts”’ but as events to which no other explanation is possible, to which I've learned to smile and say Hi Mom Hi Dad.

When it's 3am and somebody blows on the back of your neck and there's nobody else at home, what else can you say. I watched a pen I had just put down on my desk rotate in a complete circle. Hi Mom. The ONLY time in ten years that my chipper-shredder failed to start was when I probably would have risked heat stroke by wanting to finish the job instead of taking a break. By not starting I was forced to take a break and it may have saved my life. Thanks Dad!

While I am in no hurry to die, I certainly am of the opinion that my passing will but be the start of a great adventure and while I will certainly miss my Earthbound friends we will all come together in a better place eventually.

[steve86]

I know the feeling. I lost my father almost three weeks ago. He was 91. He too was with hospice care, had to use a walker, had other medical issues. I found him on the floor of his apartment after he had fallen going from the bathroom to his bedroom

Very sorry to hear that, my sincere condolences.

My mother is 97 and I know I will walk into that scene some day, although she is very up and about right now.

[steve86]

While I am in no hurry to die, I certainly am of the opinion that my passing will but be the start of a great adventure

I'm definitely in no hurry to die because I know that some parts of purgatory burn like hell.

[G Larry]

“it should be a given that evidence of life would be found.”

There is NO logical, theological, or scientific reason for your “given”.

“science has now begun to believe”

Nonsense!
They’re guessing!
There is no such “evidence”.

[georgia peach]

amen...

[georgia peach]

Afetr my only sibling passed in 2008, I had a profound dream of my deceased mother and my sister sitting together.When I asked how they were, they smiled and said,”Fine”End of dream that was to me more of a visit.

[BlueDragon]

The night in which my paternal grandfather died, what I know (and knew then) to be the Spirit of the Lord was relentlessly insistent that I pray for him.

At the time I was living in something of a small shack, no heat.

It could get a little bit cold, like down into the 40's (F) at that time of year.

I was married at the time, and my side of the bed was against the wall, there being no way to rise up without scooting myself down and exiting from the foot of the bed.

Doing so without waking my sleeping wife (who would deliver a son to me within two weeks) I knew would be all but impossible -- and let me tell you, that woman was cranky most all the time of that 9+ months...

I laid there in bed trying to pray, but it was not enough. The spirit of the Lord was insistent upon having me get out of bed and kneel down to pray.

Eventually, I did -- and was struck immediately with the thought (upon later reflection, I am not sure if that part be entirely "of the Lord") that it was too late -- my grandfather had by then already died.

So I prayed anyway for God to have mercy for him...

Some time later, a month and a half at least, perhaps longer, I received a phone call from my grandmother informing me of his death.

She was surprised that I already knew, and asked me if some other relative had contacted me. None had, for it was difficult to reach me in those days -- the phone I was called on, was not my own, and in fact was a payphone, on private property. That is strange. I know, but it was true at the time, myself putting it like that for reason that payphone has by now long since has been removed...

April 8, 1983 was the day my grandfather passed on, as that euphemism goes...

My youngest son born April 24 of that same year, 3 years to the day of the birth of his older brother, and that having come to pass only due to that year there having been a strangeness in how daylight savings time was to be calculated.

Not that it matters all that much, but at the time I was living at a Christian ministry of sorts -- and a few amateur prophetic types had made something of a game of "who will rightly prophesy" the date of my son's birth.

They [figuratively] roped me into that, one woman in particular having pressed me to provide a date, perhaps due to myself having shaken my head "no" to every attempted forecast or prediction of the date.

I could only answer what came first to my own mind -- his older brother's birthday.

It's not the only thing which the Lord has given me prophesy for. Yet for those types of knowledge I have gotten the impression that He only says what He desires to say to who He wants to say it to, and in that way has incrementally built up the faith of many, showing them that He can communicate with them, showing and proving Himself to be God of the living, the Alpha & Omega, first and the last.

Chamber Brothers People Get Ready
People get ready, there's a train a comin'
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board