I’ve seen loss of life and it is nothing to be afraid of

One of the big reasons I don’t fear death is because of such experiences I’ve had with my patients.

Now, believe me, I’m not saying that I’m looking forward to death or that I have any definite ideas about what comes after. But as far as the process of dying is concerned, I feel really confident that it’s going to be okay.

I’m not scared of suffering or being in pain or having anxiety. As I’ve seen others dying, I’ve seen them experience such peace. One of these patients was Randy, who was dying of pancreatic cancer at a young age.

Randy ended up living much longer than we had expected, around eight or nine months. During that time, we spent many visits just talking.

We talked about his childhood, his time in the military and his family.

We both liked the big, deep questions: ‘What do you think happens after we die?’ ‘Should I be afraid?’ ‘Where do you think we go?’ Randy thought a lot and, although he was finding comfort in his new friends from the hospice team, he still had a lot of fear about dying.

Our team helped him physically, emotionally and spiritually. We all felt truly connected to Randy; he was our patient but also had become our friend.

During his active dying phase, Randy developed terminal agitation. This is fairly normal at the end of life, and we were able to get him a continuous-care nurse to be with him 24 hours a day.

I would visit him every day during that time and, on one of my visits, I could tell he was very close to death.

I stood over his bed, closed my eyes and quietly said: ‘Randy, I love you, and thank you for all you’ve given me. I’ll miss you and hope you find all your answers.’

I left after that, went to my car and sat there for a minute, just taking a moment. I was sad but also happy for him. I said one last prayer: ‘God, help our sweet friend die peacefully.’

Moments later, I heard Randy’s voice clear as day in my head. I suddenly felt this intense feeling of relief and freedom. It was the most exuberant feeling you could ever imagine. Just intense joy. I couldn’t help but weep.

As I sat in my car, I continued to hear Randy’s voice. He was saying: ‘Oh my gosh, Julie. Oh my gosh, Julie. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe how good it is. If I had only known. I couldn’t have known how good it is. I can’t believe it.’

As I was hearing this, I could feel what he was feeling — the freedom, the peace, the joy. I was so overwhelmed by the feeling of home. It was the most unbelievable, unimaginable experience.

All of this happened within 30 seconds and then stopped as quickly as it started. I heard my phone beep. The nurse inside Randy’s house had texted me: Randy died.

I thought to myself, ‘I know. I think he just showed me.’

I didn’t tell anyone what had happened for a while because I was scared of sounding weird. But this experience is one of the reasons I really don’t have a fear of dying. Randy’s visit was so real in that moment. It was so pure and so amazing.

Randy’s is the only ‘shared death’ experience I’ve had, but I’ve had other experiences that felt just as miraculous.

One night I had a call to see a new hospice patient. After an initial check, I believed she was only hours or days away from dying.

Her children, all in their early 20s, were obviously concerned about their mother and immediately started asking me questions like, ‘When can we start physical therapy?’ and ‘How long until she’ll be walking again?’

As I stood there, doing my best to field these questions honestly but at the same time compassionately, my heart sank. They had no idea what was really happening. No one at the hospital had told them their mum was dying or, if they had been told, they hadn’t heard it.

It’s common for families not to fully understand or appreciate what is happening with their loved one. Normally, when I sense this, I like to explain how I know what I know.

I gave them a brief description of where their mother was in the progression of the disease and began pointing out the symptoms I had noticed.

‘I’ve been doing this a long time and, I have to tell you, I think your mother is getting close to the end of her life,’ I said finally.

I also pointed out that their mother appeared comfortable, which is always ideal and another sign that death was likely near. I showed them her changes in breathing, her unresponsiveness and changes in skin colour, all portents of impending death.

They seemed to understand. I said that if there were any family members or friends that they wanted to call, now was the time. They began calling, and I started to change their mother’s hospital gown and sheets, making sure she was comfortable and clean.

Afterward, I called the family into her room so they could spend time with her. I told them that her death was coming soon.

Before I left, I told them: ‘If anything happens, and when she dies, please call us, and we’ll come right out.’ At home that night, I couldn’t stop thinking of the family, hoping the mother would have a peaceful death and that her kids would be okay. I finally went to bed, knowing that she would be dead by the morning.

The next day I called the family. The son answered the phone and he sounded happy. I asked him how they were doing. ‘Yes, everything is great over here. Mum’s just up having pancakes.’

My jaw dropped. Awake? Alive? Eating pancakes? Now, of course, I didn’t say any of these things into the phone. I just said: ‘Wow! Wonderful! Do you mind if I stop by?’

I needed to see this with my own eyes! When I got to the house, there she was, sitting at the table, eating pancakes, smiling, talking, walking around. Never in my 15 years of nursing had I seen someone make such a massive comeback after being so incredibly close to death.

My mind tried to understand and explain this scientifically. I thought it was probably a rally or surge, in which someone who is close to death looks well for a day or two and gains more energy but then dies shortly after — something I will explain in more detail in tomorrow’s Mail on Sunday.

But it turned out I was wrong again. Their mother lived another three months, walking, talking, eating and enjoying her children until the end.

I truly believe that I witnessed a minor miracle.

I love sharing this story, but there’s another part to it that I didn’t tell for a long time.

That first night that I visited, while her children were in the other room calling family members to let them know their mum was dying, I went in to check on her and I got a sudden vision of what I guess I would consider to be an angel.

It’s hard for me to know how to talk about this because I don’t believe in angels but nor do I fully understand what I witnessed. I even doubt myself sometimes because I’m such a sceptic. But I’ll try to describe it to you.

This wasn’t what you would think an angel would look like. It was a huge being — not at all like the cute baby cherubs on greeting cards — that seemed to be standing over their mother’s bed.

It wasn’t a scary thing. It was a large, beautiful, angelic thing.

I didn’t see it with my eyes, like I’m seeing my computer screen right now as I write this. It was like a vision in my mind’s eye and then a feeling.

I saw a large solid block full of shapes, all the way to the ceiling, if not higher. It was as wide as a car and solid. It gave me the sense that it had wings, but they were tucked back, so you couldn’t see them but knew they were there.

It was cream-coloured and leaning over the patient’s bed. There were no facial features. It just felt dominant — powerful, secure, strong.

It wasn’t scary at all, but it also didn’t feel loving or soft. It felt like power. If it could speak, it would say: ‘I’ve got this.’

I had the sense that this thing didn’t care about me being there. It was more like, ‘My main focus is to be with this person in bed. She’s mine.’

Did I see an angel? I don’t know. It all happened within seconds.

The next morning, I was asking myself: ‘Did I really see that?’ But when I saw this woman the next morning, eating pancakes, I had to wonder. I think I did.

When I share these stories, I still feel slightly embarrassed. These mystical experiences are very atypical for me.

Let me be clear, I’m all about the science and physiology of dying. I have a medical understanding of each of the signs we see when someone is actively dying.

Biologically, they make sense. I understand why they’re happening and I’m grateful that they happen.

I don’t understand the experiences I’ve related, and I don’t know whether they prove there’s an afterlife, but I do think they prove that death can be beautiful and is not to be feared.

You’ve probably read about people who have had incredible near-death experiences. Maybe they briefly died on an operating table and felt themselves drift up and out of their bodies, able to see everything that was happening in the operating room.

Or perhaps they stopped breathing for a significant amount of time and, when they were finally revived, they described an encounter with a beautiful world that they could only describe as ‘heaven’.

These rare, remarkable reports let us imagine what might be coming after we die.

When we talk about deathbed phenomena, we’re usually referring to the experiences of the dying person, but caregivers have inexplicable, seemingly miraculous experiences, too.

And people don’t necessarily need to be miraculously revived to experience the unusual. Those of us who accompany someone during their journey through the process of dying are often privileged to get these eyewitness reports of somewhere ‘else’.

When one woman asked her dying mother, who seemed to be fixated on staring at one spot in the room, what she was seeing, her mother smiled and whispered: ‘Light’.

One man shared that his dying father reported: ‘The table is set, and it’s beautiful.’

Minutes before one woman’s mother died, she reached up for her husband, who’d died five years earlier.

‘Oh, Bob,’ she said, ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

When she lowered her arms, she began to cry. Then she said: ‘Bob, I’m coming,’ before she slipped away, holding the hand of her daughter.

One woman said that her dad had a huge picture of Jesus on the wall in the living room. One day he said: ‘Take that picture down. He looks nothing like that.’ He died three days later.

Another person reported that her mother had been unresponsive for days but, right before she died, she exclaimed: ‘Oh, the light. It’s just so beautiful.’

Do I understand everything that’s happening with these reports? Not at all. What I do know is that whatever they are, they’re important, because they show over and over again that death can be peaceful.

They show that our loved ones aren’t suffering as they die. On the contrary, many of them are having beautiful visions, meeting with long-dead loved ones, or having spiritual experiences in line with their deeply-held beliefs.

These are not rare occurrences either. Whether we’re talking about visions, pre-knowledge of death, seeing bright lights or angels or other phenomena, a significant number of people seem to experience them.

Medical professionals still can’t adequately explain why most of these phenomena happen, but they occur so often that we actually put them in our hospice textbooks. This is because, whatever the cause, they are a part of the dying process, and knowing about them helps us prepare both patients and their families.

In medical and scientific texts, they are referred to as either death-related sensory experiences (DRSE) or simply deathbed phenomena (DBP).

Visioning, also known as deathbed visions, is when a person who is dying begins to see people or things that aren’t physically present in the room.

If a dying person experiences visioning, it usually begins somewhere around three or four weeks before their death.

These visions commonly include deceased family members, such as parents, spouses, siblings or even grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends, too.

Religious figures such as angels, Jesus, Muhammad or God can appear — as can beloved pets who have died. Beyond people and animals, visions of beautiful landscapes or images have also been reported.

In addition to seeing these things, the dying person will often interact with them. They may hear a message, such as, ‘We’re coming to get you,’ or ‘Don’t worry, we’ll help.’

They might have a conversation with someone they’re seeing. They might even reach out to touch whatever or whoever they believe to be in the room with them.

Sometimes they may ask others in the room if they’re seeing the same vision and then describe what they’re experiencing. Or afterward, they’ll talk about who they encountered and what was said.

Some patients might start talking about getting ready to go on a journey of some kind.

Typically, the kind of visioning a dying person has is related to who they are and their life experiences.

If someone didn’t like animals, they probably won’t see a long-lost pet. Someone who had a horrible spouse isn’t usually going to see that person as the one warmly welcoming them to the other side. And someone who sees religious figures is likely to be a person of faith.

I see visioning as much as 80 per cent of the time in the dying process. It’s important for loved ones to know that visioning is common and harmless, and that the person having the experience usually isn’t afraid — in fact, in nearly all cases, medical professionals report that these visions have a calming effect, helping the patient feel more peaceful in their final days before death.

What I also find interesting is that, most of the time, my hospice patients who have these experiences know that the person they’re seeing is dead. They’re not in an altered state where they think the person is alive and in the room, and they’re often just as curious as I am.

They’re alert when it’s happening, fully understanding that no one else can see or hear what they’re seeing and hearing.

It’s not a case of confusion, but rather a fairly typical experience for those who are dying. Indeed, these types of visions have been reported across all countries and cultures and throughout recorded history.

As an ICU nurse, I often witnessed people with delirium, psychosis and hallucinations, and they behaved very differently from the people I’ve seen having deathbed visions.

The latter comes with serious agitation and restlessness, while deathbed visions come with peace and well-being. From what I’ve seen, these visions always seem to be soothing and reassuring, giving the patient a sense of comfort, love and care in their final days.

Closely related to visioning is another phenomenon called the ‘death stare’ or the ‘death reach’.

About one or two weeks before death, a dying person will sometimes begin to look past everyone, staring at the wall, the ceiling, the corner of the room, or somewhere far off.

They often won’t look away from that point for a long time. This staring is often accompanied by the person lifting their arms, reaching out to something or someone.

Sometimes both of these things happen together, sometimes separately. When they’re reaching or staring, many of these patients might say something like: ‘Don’t you see it?’ or, ‘It’s so beautiful!’

When the person is able to speak and tell us what’s going on, we might label their experience as visioning. When they’re not able to speak and we don’t know if a vision accompanies the behaviour or not, we call it the death stare or death reach. In both cases, the dying person is connecting to a world beyond this one in a way that the rest of us can’t perceive.

Adapted from Nothing To Fear by Julie McFadden, to be published by Ebury on June 13 at £16.99. © Julie McFadden 2024. To order a copy for £15.29 (offer valid to 31/06/24; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.