Nancy Davis, Ph.D.
These are stories I have been told from patients, friends, business associates and others. Their experiences are offered as a way of extending comfort to anyone who has lost a loved one…perhaps these stories may change your concept of death and dying as they have mine.
An ElementarySchool Principal:
Joan, a school principal, was in her forties when an aneurism in her brain ruptured. She was at her school when this happened; she immediately became unconscious. Her brain began to swell and when the paramedics arrived, they noted that she was clinically dead. Joan reported that as the paramedics worked to revive her, she experienced herself moving out of her body and watched them work on her from the top of the room, feeling very peaceful. Then, Joan said, she remembered herself moving toward a light where she saw her mother, who had died some years before. She stated that her mother was dressed in a purple dress and she radiated light and love. Her mother told her “It is not your time. You have two little children. You have to go back”. Joan noted she didn’t want to go back because she was filled with intense feelings of love and peace and joy unlike anything she had ever experienced in the past. All at once, she found herself moving back into her body as the paramedics successfully revived her. Joan reported that this was a life-altering experience. She shared the story with her brother, who found comfort in her story. He asked how old their mother had been and Joan replied that she did not know, but she was beautiful. However, when she shared her experience with her husband, he laughed and did not believe her. Joan, however, said that this experience had profoundly changed her in many positive ways and when her husband continued to ridicule and demean this experience, she left him.
The Airplane Pilot:
Jake was a truancy officer in a large school system. He developed cancer and endured a number of painful and debilitating treatments which were unsuccessful. As a last ditch effort to help him survive, Jake volunteered to be a subject for an experimental treatment at NIMH. At one point during this treatment, Jake reported that his heart stopped and he was, at that time, according to the staff, clinically dead. Jake remembered leaving his body, watching the doctors as they hovered around him and then, moving toward a light. He also reported experiencing an overwhelming sense of peace, love and joy. When the doctors revived him, Jake indicated he was a different person. Some time later, Jake, who also was a pilot, was flying alone in a single engine plane over the countryside. Suddenly and without warning, the plane’s engine stopped and Jake reported the nose of his plane began to go straight down toward the earth. Jake remembered that before the engine was restarted, he felt no fear at all because his previous experience with death had totally removed all fear of dying. Jake talked about death being such a beautiful and loving experience that he would never again be afraid of dying, and in fact, looked forward to it.
The Police Officer:
Aware that his 70 year old father was dying, John took leave from his job to be with his father. For several days, John sat by his father’s bed in the hospital aware that his father was getting progressively weaker. As John continued to sit by his father's bed one evening, he indicated that he saw his Uncle Matt enter the room, laughing and obviously happy. Walking toward his father's bed, Uncle Matt reached out with his arms to John’s father. In response, John's father raised his hands, reaching toward his brother. At the point their hands touched, his father died. Just as suddenly, the uncle disappeared. John smiled, as he told this story. "My uncle Matt died many years before this happened, but I saw him walk in that room as clearly as I am seeing you now. I remember that Uncle Matt looked very old in the days before he died, but the night that he walked into my father's hospital room to greet my father, he was younger and looked very healthy.” Although many who die report having those they love come to accompany them to the “other side”, it is unusual for others to see them. John noted that the visit from his uncle helped John to understand that his father was happy and with loved ones, so his experience of loss was much less than it had been in the past when he lost loved ones.
The Tea Party:
Susan had terminal cancer and had been in the hospital for some time. She had been in a coma for two weeks and her death was near. The day before she died, her husband reported that Susan was acting out having a tea party and was talking to the people she seemed to be serving. The people she spoke to seemed to be friends and loved ones who had died, some many years before. Susan was smiling and seemed very happy, although she did not respond to her husbands’ questions and conversation. She died peacefully the next day.
Tyrone:
Tyrone noted that he had been a street alcoholic. No one could stop him from drinking and he was repeatedly picked up for vagrancy and thrown into the D. C. jail. On one occasion, Tyrone said that he vomited in a way that totally closed up his wind pipe and he reported that he died. He, too, reported leaving his body and going toward the light and seeing a religious figure that was radiating such love and acceptance and joy that it changed him. The jail officials noticed that Tyrone had not been breathing and revived him. Tyrone reported that he never drank again. He stated that this experience changed him into a person who cared about others and wanted to do things that would make the world a better place. The experience had happened fifteen years prior to our conversation.
Rachel:
Rachel was fourteen when her mother told me this story. When Rachel was five, the deck on the back of the family home was being remodeled. Unaware of the danger, Rachel discovered her tricycle on their deck and without the safety of the railings which had been removed, rode off the side, fallling two stories to the ground. When her parents discovered her on the ground, Rachel was not breathing. Since both of Rachel's parents had EMT training, after several minutes, Rachel began to breathe. A short time after Rachel regained full consciousness, she appeared radiant. She excitedly told her parents that she had flown over golden cities and sat on the lap of God. Rachel remembered this event quite clearly when I asked her about it. She said it had somehow made her feel much more mature than the kids her age, as if she understood something they did not.
The Couple:
Mark’s elderly parents had remained madly in love with each other through more than 50 years of marriage. Both became seriously ill on the same day and were taken to different hospitals because of the nature of their illnesses. Mark’s mother died that evening with Mark at her side. Believing that when he heard that his beloved wife had died, his father would be devastated, Mark dreaded the task of telling his father of her death. He remembers taking a great deal of time to drive from the hospital where his mother had died to the one where his father lay ill. His father was sitting up in his bed when Mark entered his room. Looking up at his son with tears in his eyes, he said, “Your mother came into this room at 8:30 this evening and sat with me on my bed. She told me it was her time to go and that she loved me very much. Then she kissed me and disappeared”. HIs mother had died at that time; his father clearly understood that Mark's mother had died. Mark was unable to comfort his father as he cried. In a few minutes he whispered, “I can’t live without her”. Almost immediately, his father drifted into a coma and died shortly thereafter.
Jim:
Jim was in a commercial airplane when an engine broke from the right wing during take-off and was driven through the side of the cabin wall. The huge metal wing killed the two people sitting in the seats in front of Jim. Jim was so distraught from having witnessed their deaths that he was having flashbacks. When asked to describe the scene from that experience that had been most traumatic for him, Jim reported; “The first thing I remember is looking down on the scene from the top of the plane’s cabin. I thought the plane was crashing and that I was going to die. When I realized that the plane was not crashing, that the wing had only injured the passengers sitting in front of me, I seemed to return to my seat where I could see the bodies of these victims. In this incident, Jim’s belief that his death was imminent seemed to allow him to leave his body to spare him the pain of death. Many other people have reported having this experience. Jim did not have to be in pain to leave his body; this seemed to be nature’s way of protecting him.
Margaret:
Margaret, who is in her late 50’s, indicated that she was given her name by the doctor who delivered her because her mother was too sick to name her. Following her birth, Margaret’s mother was involuntarily confined to a TB hospital for many years, as was the custom during the 40’s and 50’s. Margaret had overheard her relatives say that her mother had gotten much more ill during the pregnancy with Margaret. She came to believe that she was responsible for her mother’s illness. She also believed that her mother’s allowing the doctor to name her meant that she was not loved.
When Margaret was five, her mother was released from the hospital; Margaret split her time between the grandmother who raised her and her sick mother who was too sick to be nurturing. Margaret continued to believe that her mother blamed her for being sick. When Margaret was 11 years old, her mother became so ill that she was again confined to a hospital. One night at 3:39am, her mother died. At precisely the same time, Margaret indicated that her mother came to her bed, woke her up and extended her hand to Margaret, indicating that her daughter should accompany her. Margaret remembers that she held her mother's hand as they walked up stairs toward a light. When they arrived at some kind of door at the top of the stairs, her mother turned to Margaret, looked into her eyes and said, “I love you!” Then her mother turned and moved through the door. Margaret tried to follow, but her mother pushed Margaret back with her hand, keeping her from going through the door.
The next thing Margaret remembered was waking up in her bed. Until she entered therapy in 2004, Margaret had interpreted her mother’s pushing her back as rejection and proof that she was a horrible, unlovable person. It was only after an explanation which re-framed this perception that Margaret came to understand that her mother had come to her at the moment of her death to make sure Margaret was told that she was loved. Her mother had pushed her back from the door because she loved her and did not want Margaret to accompany her in death. The realization that her mother had loved her was, for Margaret, a profound and life changing experience.