As far as deaths go, it was a good death. She died with a loved one with her, showing her affection and love. (I had always been concerned she would die alone…that I wouldn’t make it to her on time…or that she would die in her sleep, or from a stroke during the day…and I […]

“Everybody goes through the dying process in their own way,” said the LPN to my sister, Marlene, and I. We’d been told as much the day before, from another nurse, when Marlene had pointed out that Dad had gone through the death process with his eyes open the whole time…right up to his passing…“But people […]

Six days before she passed, her eyes were glazy as she weakly looked at me with half-lidded eyes. I spoke to her soothingly, telling her I was her daughter Melanie, and carefully swabbed her mouth…something she was allowing me to do…she had refused others this act. And then she took 12 strong sucks of the […]

The day before my father passed away he pulled me onto the bed with him and hugged me hard saying, “You need to understand.” I wasn’t sure specifically what he was referring to but I had several good ideas and all of them deserved a response from me of, “It’s OK Dad. I do understand.” […]

After celebrating Mom and Dad’s 68th anniversary and Mom’s 88th birthday in March (three months before Dad’s death), I told Dad I would plan a similar celebration for his upcoming 90th birthday in May. He looked at me and said, “Well, at least the important one was celebrated—Mom’s! And our anniversary!” I thought he was […]

“When I was five, my grandfather passed away. “I called him Grandpa Bunny because of a cute little book my mother had given me. He knew he was going to die, so about a month before he had given the whole family presents. “The day after his small funeral, I wanted to sleep in my […]

Do you believe you have an angel that was assigned to protect and guide you? Have you had an interaction (either directly or indirectly) with your guardian angel? –Do you know someone who has? – (Have you repeatedly heard a song, or had a specific book come into your life at the right time, or […]

Bob Schriever, co-founder of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association, was refereeing a high school football game seven years ago when he went into cardiac arrest, died and was revived. He, too, questions the dream explanation (as Laura did in my last Blog post—she had a near-death experience and says she floated out of her body […]

For Laura Geraghty, April 1, 2009, started out just as any other day. It was sunny but cool, she remembers. The mother of two, also a grandmother, was at her job, driving a public school bus in suburban Boston, Massachusetts. Her passengers, special-needs children, were wheelchair-bound. Seemingly in good health and in good spirits, Laura […]

Terminally ill patients often see or talk to someone who has already died, have glimpses of “another world” or have feelings of being in “another place”.  This may happen several weeks before death.  Usually the dreams or feeling are comforting, but sometimes they create anxieties about mental dysfunction.  You need to provide reassurance that such experiences […]