Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms (13 page)

Sammy’s health went downhill fast, and he started drifting in and out of consciousness. He’d enter a dreamlike state and mutter something in my direction, but it felt like he was talking to someone else. For example, he’d say, “Please shut the windows. Shut the windows.”

“The windows are closed,” I would tell him, wondering if he felt cold. Then when he would announce, “I’m not ready,”

I would realize he was talking about death.

One day when he asked me to close the door to his room, I was surprised because he tended to want it open. It really seemed like he was trying to keep himself there in the room, and then he drifted off to sleep.

When I sat with him, I liked to sing lullabies and songs.

Now as I hummed a tune, Sammy reached out and touched my hand. Suddenly, he was talking to his mother, reaching his arms out like a baby waiting to be picked up. I listened as he started singing like a small child.

Several times that night, he told me it was very windy and asked me to shut the windows. I went along with it, telling him that he was safe and we were all there if he needed anything. He described the sensation of being lifted off the bed by the wind. Each time he felt the force of the “wind,” he asked me to close the windows so he wouldn’t be carried away by it. He also started talking to his mother again, which made him much less fearful. At this point, I knew he was seeing a dimension that I simply couldn’t share with him.

This was new for me. Although I’d seen many people die in the course of my work, this was the first time that I was the only other person in the room.

Eventually I asked Sammy what he was reaching out for earlier.

“I wanted a hug,” he replied.

I realized that he probably hadn’t been hugged for quite some time, especially since he had AIDS and people were afraid to touch him. Tuning in to my motherly instincts, I pushed past my own fears and got beside him on his bed and gathered him in my arms. He nestled in, swaying as if he were singing. I sang him a lullaby, which seemed to comfort him. He relaxed in my embrace yet still reached outward. Then he opened his mouth wide and said, “She’s here! Mom, you’re here!”

As a result of complications of the disease, I knew that Sammy was practically blind, but then I realized that he didn’t need eyes for what he was seeing. Reaching out even more, he leaned out of my hug to where he was looking and said again, “Mom, you’re here for me.” He smiled and drifted into sleep.

When I noticed a respiratory change, I alerted the nurses, who were just happy that someone was dealing with Sammy.

I was no longer the least bit fearful, and I held on to him as I felt him drifting away. His breathing rate continued to slow, and he was having difficulty taking breaths. By this time, he’d stopped talking—it felt to me like he was going with “the wind” instead of resisting it.

Sammy was no longer in my embrace but reaching upward, so I gently released my hold on him, offering him back to his own mother. He then collapsed back onto the bed and died. I’d never seen anything like it. He had wanted so much for his mother to hug him, and he got his wish.

May you rest in peace, Sammy.

N
OT A
G
HOSTLY
E
XPERIENCE

by Nora

I am a clinical social worker and the director of professional education at an assistance program for cancer survivors. I’ve been a social worker for 14 years at an outpatient transplant center, and before that, I worked in a hospital oncology unit.

A young man named Eric was one of my patients when I was doing family support. He’d been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma when he was in college, but after treatment it had gone into remission. Unfortunately, it eventually returned and he required a bone-marrow transplant. He’d recently gotten married; and he and his wife, who were both artists and worked at the local university, came to see one of our top lymphoma specialists. That’s how I was introduced to him.

I supported Eric as he and his family went through the emotional drain of cancer, but the disease came back once again even after the transplant. When this occurred, he decided that it was time to seek hospice care when an infection forced him to check into the hospital.

Knowing that Eric was near the end of his life, he and I spent a lot of time talking about his grief. We also discussed his sadness over the things he wasn’t going to experience in life. Eric confided that he was distraught that he’d never own a little house with a backyard, have children, or even do simple things like take the garbage out to the curb. He talked about how his grandmother had raised him because his mother had run off when he was young. Nana, however, had died about four or five years previously, and he said that he’d prayed a lot when she was dying but hadn’t done so since.

Eric remained in the hospital and was eventually transferred to another unit. At some point, his doctor paged me and informed me that the young man was in the dying process. I went to Eric’s room with the chaplain, and we watched him going in and out of consciousness. This was only the third person I’d ever watched die; and I heard him gasping for breath, making what some refer to as the death rattle. The strange thing was that throughout all this, I realized he was talking to his deceased grandmother.

“Nana,” he said, in a childlike voice. “I’m here. I’m coming.”

Then he seemed to shift from his childhood to the present time, asking, “Nana, do you know that I’m dying? Are you really here?”

I told Eric that I was glad his grandmother was there. He didn’t respond but became fixed on a point on the wall to my left, and inquired, “Is that why you came back after all this time?”

I’d never experienced this before. Turning to the doctor, I explained who Eric’s grandmother was and that she had died years ago. I added, “Isn’t this amazing? What do you think about it?”

The doctor insisted that Eric’s brain was losing oxygen and he was probably hallucinating. I went over to him and put my hand on his, which felt cold since his body was shutting down. His last words were: “Nana, I’m coming.” I leaned over and whispered, “Your Nana is here for you now.” I hope he took some comfort in that.

When I think about the experience, I believe that Eric’s grandmother was really there. He was talking to her in the same manner that he’d spoken to me many times before, just as if she were sitting right beside him. It was absolutely authentic. I know that no one can prove whether or not it was real, but it sure felt that way.

Since then, I’ve tried to be present with my patients when they’re dying and do what I can to ensure that they’re comfortable and at peace. I’m not a very spiritual person, but I felt a presence in Eric’s case and in many others’ as well. Not a ghostly experience, but a feeling of holiness . . . as if someone or something is guiding my patients home.

P
erfect
T
iming

by Peter

I got my bachelor’s degree in psychology and went on to get my master’s in social work. I now work as a therapist. My most memorable story involving a deathbed vision came around the time my dad had a stroke. When he got back from the hospital, my mother was extremely dedicated, and cared for him night and day, but she ran into some problems along the way.

Dad slept on a special bed pad that was designed to eliminate bedsores, so he was staying in the guest room. But he sometimes woke up in the middle of the night and forgot where he was and would try to make his way back to his bedroom. He’d fallen twice in the process. During that second fall, Mom had slept right through it and woke up to him crawling on the floor. Startled, she at first thought a stranger was in the room.

“How could you mistake your own husband for a stranger?” I asked.

“It wasn’t like your father had brushed his teeth and was coming to bed,” she explained. “He had grabbed my leg, and it wasn’t the gentle touch of a husband. I’m not sure which scares me more: the idea of your father falling or a strange man trying to crawl into my bed in the middle of the night.”

My brothers and I decided to hire a nurse so that our mother could relax and get some uninterrupted sleep.

We thought that would take care of everything, and it did for a while.

One night Mom suddenly woke up, not because of Dad, but because she was having trouble breathing. She was rushed to the hospital and eventually diagnosed with a serious case of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).

As a family, we buckled in for a long ride with two parents in poor health. The following day, the phone rang at about 2 A.M. It was the nurse on the unit, informing me that my mom had a code blue and didn’t survive. I called my brothers, and we headed to the hospital. We considered waking up Dad and taking him with us, but it was so late and we were afraid it would be too much for him . . . plus, Mom was already gone.

At the hospital, we took care of all the paperwork and were glad that we hadn’t woken up our father; at the same time, we also knew we couldn’t just wake him up in the morning and act like nothing had happened. I told my brothers that I’d stay at our parents’ house and tell Dad in the morning. But when we pulled up to the house, we were stunned to find all the lights on and wondered what was going on.

We found out soon enough when the nursing assistant answered the door and she was clearly upset. “Your father is going crazy!” she exclaimed. “He woke up screaming that a woman was trying to get into his bed. He said that she had grabbed his leg and was pushing at him. I tried to explain that no one was there, but he insisted that a strange woman
was
there. Then he told me that she was dead! I fell to my knees and started to pray.”

“Was he panicked?” I asked her.

“No, but I was,” she admitted. “At first, he was surprised that she was there, and then he was angry that she was gone.

He was just sitting up in bed, crying.”

“What time did this happen?”

“It was almost 2.”

“That was when my mother’s heart stopped! They tried to resuscitate her but couldn’t.”

I hate to admit that just as I’d judged my mother for not recognizing my father in the middle of the night, I also judged my father for not recognizing his own wife who had died and was trying to say good-bye. In my mind, after having been married for all those years, his final
coup de grâce
was that he failed to recognize his own wife at the end of her life. I was angry that he’d just seen her as some random person.

Later, I realized that I was mostly upset because my mother had died alone. I felt sad and guilty about it, imagining that she hadn’t wanted to be alone. Wasn’t that why she was desperately trying to connect with her husband at the end of her life?

Over time, I came to realize that Mom had tried to reach out and connect with Dad the same way he’d been so desperate to climb in bed and reconnect with her. That was what they both wanted: to be together and never leave each other in body or spirit. It really had nothing to do with me.

My father died one week later to the day. In fact, he made no indication at her funeral that she was gone at all. It was as if he knew she was waiting for him—and I really believe she was.