Live deeply, live totally, live wholly, so when death comes and knocks at your door you are ready- Osho
I had been a nurse for many years and experienced some pretty remarkable things at the time of people's deaths. I worked in palliative and end of life care and was commonly amazed by experiences that would leave me questioning about what happens when a person transitions out of this world. What happens when a person dies? Does their spirit live on? I definitely don't know the answers to these age old questions, but I do know that what I've witnessed has left me wondering.
When my mother-in-law Jessie died, I, as well as other family members were at her bedside. She was at the stage in her disease that she didn't know who we were and had difficulty communicating. When we got the call late at night that this might be "it" we made our way to the care facility where she was living. This was not the first time that we got "the" call, however, and we wondered whether this was really it, or was this another false alarm. This roller coaster of near death and then coming back to life is a common phenomenon in the Alzheimer's world.
When we arrived, Jessie was unresponsive and resting peacefully. Her breathing had changed and she didn't respond to her name or touch. She seemed to be in that place that wasn't in this world, but wasn't yet transitioned out of this world. Being a palliative care nurse, I knew that this was likely the last few hours or days of her life. I was so grateful that she seemed comfortable and had a very peaceful look on her face. We just sat with her and took turns sitting on her bed and stroking her arm.
At one point early in the wee hours of the morning, my husband was sitting on the edge of the bed with Jessie's hand resting on his. He looked to me and informed me that he was going to leave to go to the washroom. As he began to move his hand away to leave for a few moments, Jessie grabbed his arm and firmly held on. Nothing else changed in her except that communication that she didn't want him to leave. My husband looked at me with disbelief in his eyes and indicated to me that he was going to try this again and see if it happened again. When he repeated this, the same thing happened. Jessie, wasn't able to talk and appeared to be unresponsive, but she was aware! Jessie died a short time later with her family at her side.
I have nursed people who shared what happened during near death experiences and who came back from an unresponsive state. All of them told me that they were aware of what people were saying to them and everything that was going on around them. This is such a powerful thing to know as people sit vigil at the bedside of someone who is dying. These same people also shared with me that they weren't afraid and that they were in a peaceful and loving place.
What experiences are you willing to share?
Bev the Tibetan book of the dead talks about such experiences where once the mind activity (pertaining to the physical brain) ceases, one's faculties and awareness is heightened because what senses or knows is not the mind but what we would refer to as the spirit or consciousness. Thanks for sharing your experience and the blog.
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