“As a nurse I’ve seen a lot of death. Most were peaceful. Some saw angels or family come to get them shortly before vitals stopped. Only once did I see the opposite. A rather hateful, demanding, well-to-do woman who snapped her fingers at nurses and family alike fell into a coma. Hadn’t moved or spoken in three days. Her heart was failing.+
“As she breathed her last she sat straight up with a look of horror and yelled, ‘Oh god, no!’ Fell back and died. A fellow nurse and I looked at each other and the hair on our arms stood up. I pray I never see that again.”
–Beth Anne Puckett, retired
“I swear she smiled from the very first notes of her favorite songs, and just as we finished Onward Christian Soldiers, she sat straight up in her bed, opened her eyes, and had the most beatific smile on her face, like she was looking in the face of God, then laid back and blew out her last breath.+
“My cousin and I were across the hall, sitting on a bench crying, of course, and the instant her head touched the pillow, both of us felt her arms around us and smelled the lilac perfume she loved so much but hadn’t worn since her arrival a week earlier, and we both clearly heard her humming like she did when she’d be rocking a baby to sleep—something every single one of us had heard from the first time she held us.+
“And we both looked at each other with the same look of shock and knew she was gone, but her last thoughts were that she loved us and she was okay, and we would be too; that she wasn’t going far; and that she’d be there with or without a body so we didn’t need to be sad anymore.+
“Then she was gone, and so were our tears. I have no doubt that death does not stop the soul; it gives it wings and rapture.”
–Danny Davis
“The light was so unworldly-bright that my young vision remained blurry for three hours afterwards.+
“All the nurses were aware of this phenomenon. We speak reassuringly to the dying, before, during, and after bodily death, because we know biological death is a process, not an ‘alive one moment, dead the next’ scenario.+
“So, if you are at the bedside of a dying person, speak out loud to them. Tell them they are loved, safe, and transitioning. Tell them you will be fine, and it’s okay for them to go. Tell them they were a wonderful friend, parent, or relative. Say they will never be forgotten. Tell them to seek the Light. Pray or sing, play music or read poems. Touch them, kiss them. Continue to do so after the vitals have slowed, then stopped.+
“This does facilitate their peaceful transition.”
–Linda Johnson, former RN at Veterans Affairs Medical Center (2005–2022)
“My mom was a prayer warrior for so many. At the end of three weeks, we decided to take her off of life support since she was a DNR/DNI [Do Not Resuscitate/Do Not Intubate] to begin with, but doctors thought she would make it. My mom was in God’s Hands. The day before mom was taken off life support, I was in the room with her. The two cousins came into the room to visit. All three of us watched my mom open her eyes. She tried to sit up with the tube in her mouth. She looked at my one cousin and tried to smile. She looked at the other cousin and then looked at me as if she was going to tear up.+
“My cousin said, ‘Look, Sue is glowing.’ My mom had this white and yellowish glowing light all around her. Then, bam, she fell back into the mattress and it was as if she was…GONE! It was like her spirit left her body and her body was nothing but a shell. The shell of her body continued to try to survive after the tube was pulled. She hiccupped a lot, burped, and her body was shutting down, yet I believe her soul was gone. The shell of her body stopped breathing after two days. Then she was declared dead at 3:33 a.m.”
–Nadine Suzi
[resources: books on the afterlife]