Will We See Our Loved Ones Again After They Die
For those that experience information technology, a deathbed vision tin be a phenomenon that carries a person though the transition of death.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- It'south common for the dying to have visions, often of someone who is already dead
- The visions that people experience at the end of life are extremely similar
- Visions tend to occur hours to weeks before death
- There's no point in telling a dying relative you think he or she is hallucinating
(OPRAH.com) -- Throughout my years of working with the dying and the bereaved, I have noticed unremarkably shared experiences that remain beyond our power to explain and fully understand. The first are visions.
As the dying run across less of this world, some people appear to brainstorm looking into the world to come. It's not unusual for the dying to have visions, often of someone who has already passed on. Your loved ane may tell you that his deceased father visited him concluding night, or your loved one might speak to his mom as if she were there in the room at that time.
It was almost 15 years ago that I was sitting at the bedside of my teacher, Elisabeth Kübler Ross, when she turned to me and asked, "What do you think near the deceased visiting those on their deathbeds to greet them?"
I replied chop-chop, showing my noesis back to her: "Y'all're speaking of deathbed visions, most likely caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain or a side effect of morphine."
She looked at me and sighed, "It will come with maturity."
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I thought to myself: "Maturity? What did maturity have to do with anything?" Now, years afterward, I look at the events we however can't explicate that happen at the end of life and realize what Elisabeth was saying.
Information technology would exist arrogant to think nosotros can explain everything, especially when information technology comes to dying. My mother died when I was still a preteen. My begetter remained an incredible optimist his whole life, even when he was dying. I was busy trying to brand sure he was comfortable and hurting-free, and at first didn't find he had get very sad.
He told me how much he was going to miss me once he was gone. And and then he mentioned how much he was saying goodbye to: his loved ones, his favorite foods, the sky, the outdoors and a million other things of this world. He was overcome by sadness I could not (and would not) have away from him.
My begetter was very down-hearted for the next few days. Simply then 1 morning he told me my mother, his wife, had come up to him the night before.
"David, she was here for me," he said with an excitement I had not seen in him in years. "I was looking at all I was losing, and I'd forgotten that I was going to be with her over again. I'm going to meet her presently." He looked at me as he realized I would still remain here. Then he added, "We'll exist there waiting for you."
Over the next two days, his demeanor changed dramatically. He had gone from a hopeless dying human being with just death in front of him to a hopeful man who was going to be reunited with the love of his life. My male parent lived with promise and too died with information technology.
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When I started compiling examples to include in my book, "Visions, Trips and Crowded Rooms: Who and What You Come across Before You Die," I was surprised by how similar they were. In fact, it was hard to pick which ones to use considering they were all so much akin.
Now I realize the very thing that makes them repetitious is also what makes them unique. As someone who has spent near of my life writing, teaching and working with the dying, I tin't prove to you lot that my father's vision was real. I can only talk most my experience every bit a son and about countless other occurrences that take place every twenty-four hour period.
I used to believe the only thing we needed to convalesce was the suffering of the dying by providing good pain management and symptom control. I know now that nosotros take more than -- we accept the "who" and "what" we see earlier nosotros die, which is perhaps the greatest condolement to the dying.
Some interesting and unexplainable items about deathbed visions:
• Visions people feel at the end of life are remarkably similar.
• The dying are most often visited past their mothers. It shouldn't be too surprising that the person who is actually nowadays equally nosotros cantankerous the threshold of life and take our first breaths one time once again appears at the threshold as we take our last breaths.
• Hands passionately reaching upward to some unseen forcefulness is witnessed in many deathbed encounters.
• Visions by and large occur toward a corner of the room.
• Those family members at a deathbed are not able to run into the vision or participate in the conversation.
• Visions unremarkably occur hours to weeks before death.
• Visions don't seem to appear in other frightening situations where expiry is not likely, such as stuck in an elevator, lost in a foreign city or lost hiking.
• Dissimilar traditional health care, the law treats a dying person'due south last words every bit the truth.
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If yous detect the concept of a dead loved one greeting you on your deathbed impossible or ridiculous, consider what I finally realized as a parent: You protect your children from household dangers. Yous hold their hands when they cross the street on their first 24-hour interval of school. You take care of them when they have the flu, and you lot see them through equally many milestones as you lot can.
Now fast-forrard 70 years after y'all, yourself, take passed abroad. What if there actually is an afterlife and you lot receive a message that your son or daughter will be dying before long? If you were allowed to go to your child, wouldn't you?
While death may look like a loss to the living, the last hours of a dying person may very well be filled with fullness rather than emptiness. Sometimes all we can do is embrace the unknown and unexplainable and brand our loved ones feel proficient about their experiences.
Possible Responses and Tips
• There's really no betoken in telling your dying male parent you think he's hallucinating or that his mom has been expressionless for several years and tin can't possibly be there.
• Instead of disagreeing, endeavor asking him, "What is your mom saying?"
• Say, "Tell me more than nigh your vision." Perchance Aunt Betty is telling your begetter that it'south okay to die or maybe they're reminiscing about growing upward together.
• Say, "It's great that Aunt Betty is here with you," or "I knew that Mother would come to meet you," or "I'm and so glad that Mom is with you now."
• Denying their reality will only separate y'all from your loved one. So bring together and explore this profound time of life.
The maxim goes, "Nosotros come into this globe alone, and we exit alone." Nosotros've been brought up to believe that dying is a lonely, solitary event. Simply what if everything we know isn't true? What if the long route that yous idea y'all'll eventually have to walk alone has unseen companions?
I would welcome those of you who have had an feel of your dying loved ones being comforted by those already deceased to share these stories here with others. In sharing our stories, nosotros will meet that the journey at the end of life is not a alone path into eternity.
Rather, it may be an incredible reunion with those we have loved and lost. It reminds us that God exists and birth is his miracle that carries the states into life. A deathbed vision is his miracle that carries us though the transition of death into the next part of our eternity.
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Source: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/18/o.end.of.life/index.html
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