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Speaker 2: let's start with Chase of the Afterlife with Santra Shaanaplay.
Speaker 3: Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
Speaker 3: opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
Speaker 3: only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
Speaker 3: to cost Am, employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
Speaker 3: and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
Speaker 3: your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself. Hi.
Speaker 3: I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been
Speaker 3: on a journey to prove the existence of life after death.
Speaker 3: On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons we now know
Speaker 3: that our loved ones have survived physical death and so
Speaker 3: whoill we welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. Thank you
Speaker 3: to all that have written to me and emailed me
Speaker 3: your stories and your journeys. I'm thrilled to be such
Speaker 3: a part of your life, and I'm hoping this is
Speaker 3: true for you, but many say that they've stopped being
Speaker 3: afraid to talk about your interest in the afterlife and
Speaker 3: are freely talking to friends and family about it. Also,
Speaker 3: we've had some extraordinary listeners that have been inspired to
Speaker 3: make a difference. Several of you are now volunteering at hospice.
Speaker 3: This week, I heard from listener Allison, who has begun
Speaker 3: her journey to become an IADC therapist, studying under Graham Maxi,
Speaker 3: who you'll remember from episode sixty six. IADC stands for
Speaker 3: induced after death Communication, and congratulations to listener Marilyn, she
Speaker 3: has begun her training as a so to find grief
Speaker 3: therapist with David Kessler. I had an AHA moment when
Speaker 3: I heard from Marylyn, because not only is David Kessler
Speaker 3: one of the best sources of grief information and support
Speaker 3: at his website grief dot com, He's written a book
Speaker 3: on the afterlife. David's extraordinary and he's had experiences with
Speaker 3: thousands of people on the edge of death, and all
Speaker 3: of this has taught him about grief and secrets to
Speaker 3: living a fulfilled life even through our tragedies. He's written
Speaker 3: many books and co authored several as well, including on
Speaker 3: Grief and Grieving with Elizabeth Koobler Ross. Today, i'd like
Speaker 3: to give you a taste of his book, which is
Speaker 3: called Visions, Trips and Crowded Rooms. Who and What You
Speaker 3: See Before You Die. As you may know about my history,
Speaker 3: it was my fear of dying that first led me
Speaker 3: on my journey for evidence of the afterlife. I'd like
Speaker 3: to begin with you hearing some words directly from David
Speaker 3: Kessler about how he began on his journey.
Speaker 4: All of us sometimes begin in our work personally before
Speaker 4: we begin professionally. And I was one of those kids
Speaker 4: growing up that was practically raised in hospitals because I
Speaker 4: had a mother who only had one kidney when I
Speaker 4: was born, she was always being admitted in discharged, and
Speaker 4: so I was always hanging out at vending machines and
Speaker 4: new hospitals. And when she passed away, I was twelve
Speaker 4: years old. She was in a hospital where the visiting
Speaker 4: age was fourteen. So she died alone in an intensive
Speaker 4: care unit without us being able to see her or
Speaker 4: family around. And at that young age, I knew as
Speaker 4: tough as death can be in losing a loved one,
Speaker 4: we have to have a better experience of it here.
Speaker 4: So I think that was really my motivation to sort
Speaker 4: of end up growing up and be someone who realizes,
Speaker 4: you know, you can't take away that pain of loss
Speaker 4: from people, but I'd like to make it a little
Speaker 4: more meaningful and help people. So I think that is
Speaker 4: where I personally came from and doing this work all
Speaker 4: these years. Kubler Ross used to tell me about people
Speaker 4: having deathbed visions, and you know, I was still on
Speaker 4: the younger side and trying to build credibility and wanted
Speaker 4: to be taken seriously, and here I was with the
Speaker 4: Elizabeth Koubler Ross. She would tell me how people are
Speaker 4: and I was like, oh, I don't even want to
Speaker 4: know about that. And it was interesting kind of as
Speaker 4: I've matured, I would see more and more healthcare professionals,
Speaker 4: more and more families saying that their loved ones would
Speaker 4: begin as they were dying, the last few weeks of dying,
Speaker 4: even the last few days and hours would begin to
Speaker 4: be greeted by the dead, that that veil between life
Speaker 4: and death would seem to drop, and their loved ones
Speaker 4: who are dying all of a sudden would have a
Speaker 4: vision of their person who had predeceased them coming. They
Speaker 4: also would start talking about going on trips and and
Speaker 4: the original word for hospice means your final resting place
Speaker 4: before you take your long journey. And they would also
Speaker 4: talk about there's crowds of people in their room and
Speaker 4: they wonder who these were. And it was interesting as
Speaker 4: I started becoming more and more on the circuit for
Speaker 4: the different conferences. I would go to all these national
Speaker 4: sort of end of life and hospice conferences, and I
Speaker 4: always found it interesting being with people from Harvard and
Speaker 4: Yale and places like that who were very serious about
Speaker 4: the topic. We'd all go to dinner and after a
Speaker 4: few drinks and everyone what everyone really wanted to talk
Speaker 4: about was how their patients were having deathbed visions. And
Speaker 4: I eventually thought, I finally feel like I'm mature enough
Speaker 4: and have the courage to write about this. What we
Speaker 4: see is we see that patients as they are going
Speaker 4: into their final days and hours will often have a
Speaker 4: visitation from the dead. The number one person who usually
Speaker 4: comes is our mother. No surprise there that the woman
Speaker 4: who was there in those moments. We took our first
Speaker 4: breath would once again be there as we took our
Speaker 4: last breath, we will reach our hands upward as we
Speaker 4: go into those last weeks, days, and hours. People see
Speaker 4: this vision, usually in the corner of the room. They
Speaker 4: will also see angels. So these are a number of phenomenons.
Speaker 4: As I would talk to family members, they would say
Speaker 4: to me, it's so sad. Our grandpa was such a
Speaker 4: smart man, but you know, he went crazy at the
Speaker 4: end of his life. He thought he was seeing the dead.
Speaker 4: And that's another reason why I felt like we really
Speaker 4: owe it to people to start the conversation about what
Speaker 4: really happens at the end of life, so that people
Speaker 4: think and know when their loved ones begin to see
Speaker 4: the dead appear, that your grandfather isn't going crazy, He's
Speaker 4: experiencing something quite normal. And every lecture that I do,
Speaker 4: I ask health care professionals to raise their hands if
Speaker 4: they've had a patient who's had a deathbed experience of
Speaker 4: every lecture, and sometimes I'm even at other people's lectures,
Speaker 4: and I asked the question, it's remarkable how common this
Speaker 4: is and yet not talked about. It was interesting that
Speaker 4: Oprah dot com asked me to write an article about
Speaker 4: this and CNN asked me to write an article and
Speaker 4: they had over a thousand pages of responses from people
Speaker 4: of stories of loved ones doing this and having this experience.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's interesting. From the critics, they will
Speaker 4: kind of say, why did you choose to write about this?
Speaker 4: How do we know it's true? And my response is, look,
Speaker 4: if people who were dying started seeing pink rabbits, I'd
Speaker 4: be questioning why is everyone seeing pink rabbits. The reality,
Speaker 4: whether we like it or not, is the dying do
Speaker 4: see the dead. And I want to report on that.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting. In the book, I have interviews. I
Speaker 4: made sure it was strictly healthcare providers, doctors, nurses, clergy, priests, rabbis,
Speaker 4: social workers, psychiatrists to really give their healthcare on what
Speaker 4: they've been seeing in the last weeks and days of life.
Speaker 3: Now, not everyone knows the deceased person that's coming to
Speaker 3: greet them. Here's a story.
Speaker 4: There were interviews of people who were greeted by this
Speaker 4: gentleman who said he was there to take care of him.
Speaker 4: And let's say his name was Brian. Everyone was like,
Speaker 4: who's Brian that they're talking to? And the person would
Speaker 4: pass and Brian would seem to have been there, and
Speaker 4: then all of a sudden, the mother comes out and says, oh, well,
Speaker 4: I never told anyone, but he was adopted or whatever.
Speaker 4: In his biological father was Brian. So there's times people
Speaker 4: meet people they don't even know who they are. It's
Speaker 4: not oxygen deprivation. We would get stories from people who
Speaker 4: were three weeks out from death, who didn't have any
Speaker 4: oxygen issues at that point, who were oxygenating, well, there
Speaker 4: was no way to explain them. We hear that it's
Speaker 4: a side effect of the drugs, the morphine, etc. We
Speaker 4: have people who were on any pain medication that weren't
Speaker 4: on medications at all and have them. We hear it's
Speaker 4: the mind deteriorating. When I looked into that, you think
Speaker 4: about there are millions, if not billions, of ways for
Speaker 4: us to live and to die. Everyone dies so uniquely.
Speaker 4: Why would everyone have the same visions? Because the brain
Speaker 4: can disintegrate in a million different ways. How in everyone
Speaker 4: who has these visions could it disintegrate in exactly the
Speaker 4: same way causing the exact same vision. It's interesting. The
Speaker 4: one thing that I sort of will get a bit
Speaker 4: criticized in letters about and people will say, gosh, you know,
Speaker 4: it just seems like you kind of made your stories
Speaker 4: all alike. And I respond with no, believe me as
Speaker 4: an author. If I was writing this and I could
Speaker 4: just make up stories, I would have made them all different.
Speaker 4: But that is what we see, and people see it
Speaker 4: in so many different cultures. For folks that may be
Speaker 4: interesting who had a chance to see Hereafter Clint Eastwood's
Speaker 4: movie with Matt Damon, I worked on part of that movie,
Speaker 4: and it's interesting that my counterpart in the movie says
Speaker 4: the exact same thing that you know she talks about.
Speaker 4: The stories from the dying are just remarkably similar that
Speaker 4: there's no other way to explain this similarity across cultures.
Speaker 4: Interestingly enough, the dying will often talk about that sense
Speaker 4: that they have to get ready, they have to get prepared,
Speaker 4: they need to get their tickets or their passport or
Speaker 4: something like that, or they just have a sense that
Speaker 4: they can't seem to articulate to people about they have
Speaker 4: to prepare and get ready for a journey. I was
Speaker 4: so curious to see what kind of stories we would get.
Speaker 4: Interestingly enough, it seems like people see loved ones greeting
Speaker 4: them that they are comforted by, and you may get
Speaker 4: someone that you don't know, but no one came along
Speaker 4: with someone that the person fears, And nothing about the
Speaker 4: devil or hell or any of those things came along either.
Speaker 4: And I quite frankly, was surprised because I really expected
Speaker 4: that there were stories of patients who were expecting hell
Speaker 4: or expecting to see a husband greeting them who had
Speaker 4: abused them and they didn't want to see him. But
Speaker 4: surprisingly that did not happen.
Speaker 3: So now you've got a little taste of what David
Speaker 3: Kessler sounds like and his passion behind it, and that
Speaker 3: no one dies alone. Were often greeted by mom. Well,
Speaker 3: most people are. There's no scary stuff when we die,
Speaker 3: nobody from our past that has heard us or anything
Speaker 3: like that. For me, hearing these stories is one of
Speaker 3: the very top reasons I believe in the afterlife. I
Speaker 3: never get sick of hearing them. You've heard me talk
Speaker 3: about Christopher Kerr and his book Death Is But a Dream.
Speaker 3: He's the hospice doctor who interviewed over sixteen hundred patients.
Speaker 3: I love this stuff, and I hope you do too.
Speaker 3: What we'll do in the next segment is we'll start
Speaker 3: reading from the book called Visions, Trips and Crowded Rooms.
Speaker 3: Who and What you See before you Die. This book
Speaker 3: is one hundred and ninety six pages long and it
Speaker 3: is packed with stories from healthcare professionals. I'm hoping you
Speaker 3: do as I did and get yourself a copy of
Speaker 3: the book. You can find everything out about David Kessler,
Speaker 3: especially his wonderful grief support and tools at grief dot com.
Speaker 3: Very easy to remember. You can also find this book
Speaker 3: in all of the others as well. It's time for
Speaker 3: us to go into our first break and buckle your seatbelt.
Speaker 3: There might just be some stories that give you goose bumps.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife.
Speaker 3: I'm the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal podcast Network.
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Speaker 3: Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain.
Speaker 3: In the beginning of the book Visions, Trips and Crowded
Speaker 3: Rooms by author David Kessler, He's got a note to
Speaker 3: the reader. He says, this book is the result of
Speaker 3: personal experiences of healthcare professionals and clergy members, as well
Speaker 3: as those who have lost loved ones. The contributors have
Speaker 3: not received any pay or recognition. Rather, they have shared
Speaker 3: their stories in the hope that readers will come away
Speaker 3: less afraid and with a deeper understanding about what happens
Speaker 3: in our final moments of life. These first hand accounts
Speaker 3: suggest that deathbed visions are normal and actually common, and
Speaker 3: they were called from believers and skeptics alike. With no agenda,
Speaker 3: This book is simply a report from the front lines,
Speaker 3: featuring stories of average people, in their own words, experiencing
Speaker 3: extraordinary events. David Kessler says his book is about hope,
Speaker 3: and these are a few of his words. Although I
Speaker 3: lost my mother too soon, my father remained an incredible
Speaker 3: optimist his whole life, even when he was dying. I
Speaker 3: was busy trying to make sure he was comfortable and
Speaker 3: pain free, and at first didn't notice that he had
Speaker 3: become very sad. He told me how much he was
Speaker 3: going to miss me once he was gone, and then
Speaker 3: he mentioned how much he was saying goodbye to his
Speaker 3: loved ones, his favorite foods, the sky, the outdoors and
Speaker 3: a million other things of this world. He was overcome
Speaker 3: by sadness I could not and would not take away
Speaker 3: from him. My father was very down for the next
Speaker 3: few days, but then one morning he told me that
Speaker 3: my mother, his wife, had come to him the night before.
Speaker 3: I was looking at all. I was losing, and I'd
Speaker 3: forgotten that I was going to be with her again,
Speaker 3: and that I'm going to see her soon, he said.
Speaker 3: He looked at me as if he realized I would
Speaker 3: still remain here. Then he added, We'll be there waiting
Speaker 3: for you. Over the next two days, his demeanor changed dramatically.
Speaker 3: He had gone from a hopeless, dying man with only
Speaker 3: death in front of him, to a hopeful man who
Speaker 3: was going to be reunited with the love of his life.
Speaker 3: My father lived with hope and also died with it.
Speaker 3: Beautiful words. Our first story is by Heather. She says,
Speaker 3: I've worked in the medical field for years as a nurse.
Speaker 3: I try to know the ins and outs of the
Speaker 3: healthcare system. But nothing challenges a person as much as
Speaker 3: when his or her own family members become ill. My mother, Mabel,
Speaker 3: and I were out on a Saturday afternoon. By the
Speaker 3: time we'd finished our errands and had driven back to
Speaker 3: my parents' house. It was nightfall. We were both surprised
Speaker 3: by the sudden darkness, and then remembered we had just
Speaker 3: turned the clocks back the night before. As I brought
Speaker 3: in a grocery bag, I called out for my dad
Speaker 3: Joseph to hold the door open, but there was no response.
Speaker 3: My mother and I looked at each other, wondering what
Speaker 3: was up. I started to put away the food while
Speaker 3: Mom went to look for Dad, whom she was sure
Speaker 3: must have been napping in front of the TV. She
Speaker 3: found the TV on, but no Joseph. She checked all
Speaker 3: the rooms and both the back and front yards, but
Speaker 3: he was nowhere to be found. Mom called a few
Speaker 3: neighbors who hadn't seen him. After an hour, we were
Speaker 3: both pretty panicked. At the age of eighty five, my
Speaker 3: father had stopped driving due to his failing eyesight, and
Speaker 3: we were afraid that he had attempted to drive. Although
Speaker 3: we were quickly relieved to see that the car was
Speaker 3: still in the garage, we couldn't imagine where he had
Speaker 3: gone or why. Our concern deepened when we saw his
Speaker 3: wallet sitting on the dresser. Mother called the police and
Speaker 3: I drove around the neighborhood searching. Four frantic hours later,
Speaker 3: we got a call that an officer had found my
Speaker 3: father across town and that he seemed confused and wasn't
Speaker 3: sure where he was. The next few days were filled
Speaker 3: with doctor's appointments to confirm what we suspected Dad had Alzheimer's.
Speaker 3: My mom, of course, had realized that her husband was
Speaker 3: getting older, but when she noticed the odd little things
Speaker 3: he did, she'd say, no, one in their eighties is
Speaker 3: a rocket scientist. Even so, she never expected him to
Speaker 3: wander away and forget where he lived. After the diagnosis,
Speaker 3: we found ways to make sure that he was never alone,
Speaker 3: and even replace the locks so that you needed keys
Speaker 3: to get in and out of the house when we
Speaker 3: were sleeping. Family and friends also pitched in during the
Speaker 3: day if my mom had to go out or if
Speaker 3: I was working. If things weren't already hard enough, my
Speaker 3: mother began to have stomach problems and was feeling very fatigued.
Speaker 3: Now I was dealing with two elderly parents in declining health.
Speaker 3: On top of my father having Alzheimer's, Mom was diagnosed
Speaker 3: with pancreatic cancer. I soon found out that juggling my
Speaker 3: job as a nurse and caring for my own children
Speaker 3: as well as my ailing parents was more than I
Speaker 3: could handle, and quitting work was not an option. My
Speaker 3: coworkers had been mentioning for a while that perhaps it
Speaker 3: was time to put my dad in a facility, and
Speaker 3: even though I'd resisted the idea at first, it now
Speaker 3: seemed like my options were dwindling. So my parents and
Speaker 3: I began looking at nursing homes and found Sunset Gardens,
Speaker 3: which was a really nice place. Dad was content as
Speaker 3: this facility had a perfect mixture of comfort and security.
Speaker 3: After all, he was still a strong man in otherwise
Speaker 3: good health. It was a blessing that the move was
Speaker 3: surprisingly uneventful. Mom was more upset about living apart from
Speaker 3: her husband, so when she wasn't at her own doctor's appointments,
Speaker 3: she was there at Sunset Gardens with him. At eighty
Speaker 3: one years old, my mother decided not to undergo chemo
Speaker 3: or other aggressive treatments, preferring to let nature take its course.
Speaker 3: The doctors told her that she probably had a year
Speaker 3: or so, but no one expected her to suddenly fall
Speaker 3: on the way to the bathroom one day and break
Speaker 3: her hip. After a lengthy hospital stay, she now required
Speaker 3: around the clock care since her needs were different from
Speaker 3: my dad's. However, she ended up in a separate facility.
Speaker 3: I was now shuttling between my kid's school, my job,
Speaker 3: and two nursing homes for my mom. Things quickly went
Speaker 3: from bad to worse. After the broken hip came a
Speaker 3: urinary track infection, then a respiratory infection. As her illness escalated,
Speaker 3: I was getting over to see my father less and less.
Speaker 3: Other family members would make sure he had a visit
Speaker 3: at least two or three times a week, even though
Speaker 3: at this point he no longer recognized his loved ones.
Speaker 3: Mom's doctors met with us and explained that there were
Speaker 3: just too many things going wrong with her body at
Speaker 3: once that returning to the hospital for more testing didn't
Speaker 3: make sense. While we agreed, we ultimately left the decision
Speaker 3: to Mom. She said, I've lived over eight decades. I
Speaker 3: can't complain too much. It's my time. I was searching
Speaker 3: for a way for my parents to be together, but
Speaker 3: my mother's facility didn't accept Alzheimer's patients, and while my
Speaker 3: father's only accepted patients with Alzheimer's and dementia, We were
Speaker 3: unsure if we should even tell him how bad Mom
Speaker 3: was because there was basically nothing he could do. We'd
Speaker 3: hope to find a way to get him out for
Speaker 3: a few hours to see his wife. When the call
Speaker 3: came that Mom's condition had worsened, her blood pressure was
Speaker 3: dropping and her heart rate was increasing. That evening, my
Speaker 3: family and I sat by my mom, who was still
Speaker 3: very alert, but her breathing was more audible than usual.
Speaker 3: She suddenly looked up and said, Joseph died. Why didn't
Speaker 3: anyone tell me this? I jumped in and quickly corrected her, Mom,
Speaker 3: Daddy isn't dead. He's still in the nursing home. Startled
Speaker 3: by her statement, I suddenly realized that I'd better find
Speaker 3: a way to get Dad over here. We were afraid
Speaker 3: that my mom was beginning to lose her faculties, and
Speaker 3: we wanted her to see her husband while she could
Speaker 3: still talk with him.
Speaker 2: Mom.
Speaker 3: I said, we'll see if the nursing home will let
Speaker 3: us pick up Dad so he can visit. I nodded
Speaker 3: to my cousin Jackie to call the nursing home to
Speaker 3: make arrangements for one of us to get him. Joseph
Speaker 3: already came to say goodbye. Mom insisted, and he told
Speaker 3: me that I'd be with him soon. We all just
Speaker 3: looked at each other, acknowledging that my mother was hallucinating.
Speaker 3: I gently repeated, Mom, Dad is in the nursing home.
Speaker 3: We're going to bring him here. Once again, she repeated, no,
Speaker 3: he's dead, but this time she also sat up. Look
Speaker 3: there he is. She seemed to be gazing past everybody,
Speaker 3: and then she said, Joseph, you came back for me.
Speaker 3: Her eyes filled with tears, and she lay back on
Speaker 3: the bed. Just then, the nurse and my cousin motioned
Speaker 3: for me to come over and talk with them at
Speaker 3: the nurse's station. I met them just outside the door
Speaker 3: when Jackie said, Heather, I don't know how to tell
Speaker 3: you this. I called the nursing home and Joseph died
Speaker 3: about fifteen minutes ago. He had a heart attack. Mom
Speaker 3: died two days later. Even though I hadn't seen the
Speaker 3: vision of my father, I found great comfort in the
Speaker 3: fact that he had come to my mother and now
Speaker 3: they were together again. Since my parents are gone, I
Speaker 3: rarely tell this story, but it feels as if I
Speaker 3: went from a medical nightmare to the universe. Stepping in,
Speaker 3: allowing mom and dad to pass away peacefully with each other.
Speaker 3: I admit it's beyond my understanding, but I believe I
Speaker 3: had a special glimpse into a world rarely seen. I
Speaker 3: know I'm not alone. That many of us have parents
Speaker 3: in their eighties and beyond, and we consider what's going
Speaker 3: to happen when they get older and health changes. I
Speaker 3: hope these stories comfort you as they comfort me. We
Speaker 3: take things one moment at a time and trust that
Speaker 3: our future selves will be able to deal with whatever
Speaker 3: comes our way. But rest assured our loved ones and
Speaker 3: ourselves will have a greeting committee there to meet us
Speaker 3: when it's our time to go. Time for our break,
Speaker 3: and then we'll be back with more stories. You're listening
Speaker 3: to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast
Speaker 3: to Coast AM Paranormal podcast network.
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Speaker 3: Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain,
Speaker 3: and I'm just thinking about how I operate When I
Speaker 3: watch a TV show and they mentioned a good book.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I have that book ordered on my Kindle or
Speaker 3: from Amazon for the next day delivery before the show
Speaker 3: even ends. Listening to this episode, I wouldn't doubt that
Speaker 3: you might have done the same thing with David Kessler's
Speaker 3: book Visions, Trips and Crowded Rooms. Our next story is
Speaker 3: by Jack. He says after graduating from medical school, I
Speaker 3: wasn't sure which branch of medicine I wanted to dedicate
Speaker 3: myself to. Then I did my oncology rotation at a
Speaker 3: hospital in Michigan and something grabbed me. Seeing patients who
Speaker 3: are so sick was difficult, but when the oncologists were
Speaker 3: able to give them more time or improve their quality
Speaker 3: of life, it was wonderful. And seeing patients in remission
Speaker 3: going back to their everyday lives seemed like the best
Speaker 3: kind of medicine for me. I decided this was my calling.
Speaker 3: It's interesting being a doctor in my family. My family
Speaker 3: still sees me as Jack, and my medical degree doesn't
Speaker 3: give me any advantages. It's funny when your mother's home
Speaker 3: remedy beats out scientifically tested medicine. It keeps you humble
Speaker 3: and grounded. When I went into oncology, it never occurred
Speaker 3: to me that I might see one of my own
Speaker 3: loved ones terminally ill. So when I got the news
Speaker 3: that my younger brother Mike, who was just forty one,
Speaker 3: had cancer, it was really hard for me to act
Speaker 3: like a doctor and not a saddened man who was
Speaker 3: afraid to lose his brother. Mike was just hitting his stride.
Speaker 3: He enjoyed his career and was seeing a lot of
Speaker 3: success in his real estate investments. It seemed incomprehensible that
Speaker 3: his cancer was advanced, and it was almost impossible for
Speaker 3: my family to face the reality that it might be
Speaker 3: too late. I tried to remain hopeful, but I knew
Speaker 3: too much. As my brother became sicker, family and friends
Speaker 3: would turn to me for an update on his condition,
Speaker 3: but I wasn't his physician. They just assumed that I
Speaker 3: would know what to do or think of some new
Speaker 3: way to treat him. It was strange to suddenly have
Speaker 3: the respect I'd always wanted from my family, Yet this
Speaker 3: wasn't how I wanted to get it. I wanted to
Speaker 3: be the one to show the best way to heal
Speaker 3: a cut, or to determine whether my nephew needed to
Speaker 3: get his tonsils removed, not to be the one to
Speaker 3: explain that Mike was dying. Watching my younger brother go
Speaker 3: through all of this was ripping me apart. One day
Speaker 3: near the end, my mother and I were sitting with Mike,
Speaker 3: who was quiet but not sleeping. Then he suddenly started talking,
Speaker 3: as if there was someone standing right in front of him.
Speaker 3: He definitely wasn't addressing my mom or me. Mom and
Speaker 3: I looked at each other in a way that said,
Speaker 3: what is this. We soon realized that Mike was indeed
Speaker 3: talking to someone, and as we listened to the conversation,
Speaker 3: it dawned on us that he was speaking to my
Speaker 3: father's parents. He had been very close to them and
Speaker 3: loved them both very much. When Grandma died, Mike started
Speaker 3: spending more and more time with our grandfather. Since my
Speaker 3: cousins and I were away at school. We were grateful
Speaker 3: that my brother was there and could visit with him
Speaker 3: so often. After Grandpa died, it hit Mike very hard.
Speaker 3: So the notion that it was my grandparents who came
Speaker 3: to my brother as he was dying wasn't that surprising.
Speaker 3: As a doctor, it's very easy to dismiss this sort
Speaker 3: of thing until you see it firsthand. Could my brother's
Speaker 3: vision have been a dream state? Was it a result
Speaker 3: of oxygen deprivation, a side effect of the medications. All
Speaker 3: were possible, but for my mother and me, none of
Speaker 3: those options felt right. It felt profound, it was real.
Speaker 3: None of us wanted to interfere, so we just observed
Speaker 3: for the next few hours. Mom and I watched Mike
Speaker 3: on and off. We could never quite make out exactly
Speaker 3: what he was saying, but we could hear him called
Speaker 3: both of my grandparents by name. He also had a sweet,
Speaker 3: tender look on his face. All of the things that
Speaker 3: we were doing for him, from end of life care
Speaker 3: to making sure he got the best of everything, this
Speaker 3: visit seemed to bring him the most comfort. Before this episode,
Speaker 3: there was a sense of struggle and tension in the air,
Speaker 3: but now there seemed to be only peace surrounding my brother.
Speaker 3: I truly believe that it was a result of my
Speaker 3: grandparent's visit. As he died. One family member asked, as
Speaker 3: a doctor, what do you make of this? And I responded,
Speaker 3: I don't make anything of it. As a doctor, I
Speaker 3: don't have a scientific explanation. I only have my own
Speaker 3: experience to draw from. It was an authentic part of
Speaker 3: the process. When my patients have similar experiences, I don't
Speaker 3: question it as a doctor. I just accept that this
Speaker 3: is what's going on. If it feels right to a patient,
Speaker 3: so be it. But this is definitely not the kind
Speaker 3: of thing they teach us in medical school. Our next
Speaker 3: story comes from Zach. I'm a thirty two year old
Speaker 3: who works in end of life care as a nursing
Speaker 3: researcher in the psychology of trauma and loss. I became
Speaker 3: interested in this during my last year in the Army
Speaker 3: and now focus on the grieving process, particularly related to
Speaker 3: fathers who have lost children. However, my experience with deathbed
Speaker 3: visions involves a woman named Dora who is dying from
Speaker 3: kidney failure. Dora put up a good fight, but during
Speaker 3: her last week of life, she started to go in
Speaker 3: and out of consciousness. Time it happened, she faded out,
Speaker 3: but then suddenly seemed lucid and started talking to someone
Speaker 3: no one else could see. As time passed, she started
Speaker 3: looking over or around her family members and me as
Speaker 3: if we were in the way, and up at the ceiling,
Speaker 3: more often carrying on a conversation with her invisible visitor.
Speaker 3: When her kidney failure had reached the terminal stage, the
Speaker 3: critical point, she began talking out loud to her deceased mother. Mommy,
Speaker 3: she asked, as if she were still a child.
Speaker 5: Is that you?
Speaker 3: Those of us watching were amazed as Dora continued talking, Mommy,
Speaker 3: You're back. She was clearly seeing her mother as if
Speaker 3: she were right there in the room. Dora's voice was
Speaker 3: so genuine an adamant that I often had the urge
Speaker 3: to turn my head to look for the person she
Speaker 3: was talking to, even though I knew I wouldn't see
Speaker 3: anyone there. At first, Dora's daughter, Mara, was upset when
Speaker 3: she heard her mother talking to her grandmother, but then
Speaker 3: she became enthralled as she listened to her mom describe
Speaker 3: a robe of light surrounding her mother. My goodness, Dora exclaimed,
Speaker 3: look at the robe you're wearing. It's so bright. I
Speaker 3: can hardly keep my eyes on it. I've never seen
Speaker 3: anything like this. Myra, who didn't see the vision, simply
Speaker 3: told her mother, I love you. That seemed to snap
Speaker 3: Dora out of her vision, and she looked directly into
Speaker 3: her eyes, saying Mara, I love you too. Yet soon afterward,
Speaker 3: she began talking with her invisible mother again. It was
Speaker 3: extremely beautiful to watch and was quite different from what
Speaker 3: I had ever experienced because the patient herself was completely
Speaker 3: stunned by the vision. Dora was as amazed and surprised
Speaker 3: as anyone could be that her deceased mother was right
Speaker 3: there in the room with her and draped in robes
Speaker 3: so spectacular and bright that she had to look away.
Speaker 3: At one point while this was going on, I asked
Speaker 3: Mara what she did for a living. I teach special
Speaker 3: needs kids in primary school. And what did your grandmother do?
Speaker 3: I asked, wondering why she was appearing in the midst
Speaker 3: of so much light. She was a housewife, but also
Speaker 3: spent a lot of her time volunteering at the local hospital.
Speaker 3: Myra told me, I'll never forget the day that Dora died.
Speaker 3: I asked Myra afterward what she thought about the experience,
Speaker 3: and she told me, through tears, that it was beautiful
Speaker 3: for her and not awkward or strange. She felt this
Speaker 3: way mainly because she could envision her mom being carried
Speaker 3: over in a sense, by her own mother. When I
Speaker 3: look back, there's no doubt in my mind that Dora
Speaker 3: was seeing her mother, a kind of guest from the
Speaker 3: spiritual realms. I'm not a religious guy, I never was,
Speaker 3: yet the vision didn't seem impossible to me. In fact,
Speaker 3: it seemed like a natural progression. Parents usually die before
Speaker 3: their children, and I see them sort of leading the
Speaker 3: way when it's the child's turn. It's as if a
Speaker 3: father dies before his son, so that he can come
Speaker 3: back and show him that death really isn't so bad.
Speaker 3: After all, our parents are waiting for us on the
Speaker 3: other side. When I really think about it, I have
Speaker 3: to admit the idea that our loved ones are watching
Speaker 3: over us makes perfect sense to me. Over time, I've
Speaker 3: seen that visions can be very comforting for patients. I
Speaker 3: will always remember Dora and the piece she felt from
Speaker 3: gazing upon her mother wearing that spectacular, rightly shining robe.
Speaker 3: As you're listening to these stories, do you find yourself
Speaker 3: imagining when it's your time, who is going to be
Speaker 3: there to greet you? I just got an image of
Speaker 3: my grandmother and my dad very special. Talk to any
Speaker 3: hospice doctor or nurse they have no fear of dying.
Speaker 3: Talk to any hospice volunteer, neither do they. What's the
Speaker 3: common denominator being by people's sides as they pass away.
Speaker 3: This happens more are often than not. It's a difficult
Speaker 3: job to be a caregiver in this situation, So thank
Speaker 3: you to all of our caregivers listening today. We're off
Speaker 3: to the break and then more stories from the book Visions,
Speaker 3: Trips and Crowded Rooms by David Kessler. You're listening to
Speaker 3: Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Speaker 3: Coast am Paranormal Podcast Network. The Internet is an extraordinary
Speaker 3: resource that links our children to a world of information, experiences,
Speaker 3: and ideas. It can also expose them to risk. Teach
Speaker 3: your children the basic safety rules of the virtual world.
Speaker 3: Our children are everything, Do everything for them.
Speaker 5: On the iHeartRadio and am Paranoral Podcast Network.
Speaker 4: Listen anytime, any place.
Speaker 5: Hey, it's the Wizard of Weird Joshua P.
Speaker 1: Warren.
Speaker 3: Don't forget to check out my show Strange Things each.
Speaker 5: Week as I bring you the world of the truly
Speaker 5: amazing and bizarre right here on the iHeartRadio and Coast
Speaker 5: to Coast am Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain,
Speaker 3: and our next story from David Kessler's book Visions, Trips
Speaker 3: and Crowded Rooms shows us that we don't have to
Speaker 3: believe in the after life to have one of these visions.
Speaker 3: This story is by Angela. I'm a psychologist and I
Speaker 3: specialize in addiction and chemical dependencies. When I counsel couples
Speaker 3: with so many problems I often think back on my
Speaker 3: own parents, Helen and Milton. It makes me realize what
Speaker 3: a unique and wonderful relationship they had. My parents were
Speaker 3: married for sixty two years and could finish each other's sentences.
Speaker 3: They shared everything. One of their enduring qualities was a
Speaker 3: quirky sense of humor. Mom told me that when she
Speaker 3: found out she was pregnant with me, she'd asked, Dad,
Speaker 3: you sure you don't want to carry this baby? And
Speaker 3: when my father got a speeding ticket, the police officer
Speaker 3: was still standing there when Dad looked over to my
Speaker 3: mom sitting behind him, and said, Honey, you speed too,
Speaker 3: Would you like this Ticket's sense of humor also carried
Speaker 3: over to his work as a dentist, and his patients
Speaker 3: loved having a doctor who could make them laugh. I
Speaker 3: loved laughing with both of my parents too, and decided
Speaker 3: that they were the funniest parents a girl could ever have.
Speaker 3: My parents used humor for life's serious moments as well.
Speaker 3: For example, when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer
Speaker 3: and needed a radical mastectomy, she equipped, oh, Milton, be
Speaker 3: a man, volunteer your breast. You don't need yours like
Speaker 3: I need mine. One morning, when Mom was getting up,
Speaker 3: she had a sudden aortic rupture and died instantly. She
Speaker 3: was eighty. Dad did his best to cope, but he'd
Speaker 3: miss his beloved partner for the rest of his life.
Speaker 3: He never made those jokes with anyone else. Five years later,
Speaker 3: my dad was in a hospice unit after a long
Speaker 3: battle with ladder cancer that had spread throughout his body.
Speaker 3: My father and I had become especially close after my
Speaker 3: mom died, and I stayed by his side as much
Speaker 3: as possible. Dad was feeling well and reading the Sunday
Speaker 3: paper one day when I said, Hey, you're looking a
Speaker 3: little rough around the edges. How about a shave? Sure,
Speaker 3: he replied, since he was having trouble holding a newspaper,
Speaker 3: holding a razor would be even more difficult. So I
Speaker 3: quickly blurted out, welcome to Angela's barbershop and started looking
Speaker 3: around the bathroom. Dad, did you bring your razor?
Speaker 4: I asked.
Speaker 3: He couldn't remember, so I called the nurse and asked
Speaker 3: if she had a spare shaving kit. I walked over
Speaker 3: to the nurse's station and waited as she gathered the
Speaker 3: supplies for me. I suddenly heard my dad talking to
Speaker 3: someone and realized that the nurse hadn't turned off the
Speaker 3: intercom in his room. I couldn't make out what he
Speaker 3: was saying, but figured that one of his friends must
Speaker 3: have dropped by. The nurse walked back with me, and
Speaker 3: we found my father in the room all alone. Who
Speaker 3: are you talking to, dad, Helen? He casually replied, Helen,
Speaker 3: as in, my mom, who is dead? That's the one.
Speaker 3: Do you know that she's dead? I asked, as gently
Speaker 3: as possible. Of course, I was with her when she died,
Speaker 3: and she's here now. Yes, I know it's strange, but
Speaker 3: it's true. Then the nurse chimed in, it isn't unusual
Speaker 3: for a dying person to have loved ones come to
Speaker 3: greet them. I've heard that, Dad said, but I don't
Speaker 3: believe in it. But you just said Mom was here,
Speaker 3: I reminded him, Well, I must have been hallucinating from
Speaker 3: the drugs. The only medication you're on is to help
Speaker 3: with your nausea, the nurse told him, and it isn't
Speaker 3: known to impair a person's thinking. Dad seemed a bit irritated. Okay,
Speaker 3: so maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we do get visits. Am
Speaker 3: I going to get a shave or what. I gently
Speaker 3: patted some shaving cream on my father's face. He glanced
Speaker 3: back to look over his left shoulder and said, Helen,
Speaker 3: are you sure you don't want to shave too? When
Speaker 3: I just stared blankly at him, he explained, your mother
Speaker 3: is laughing. What is it, honey, he asked, as he
Speaker 3: could see that I was starting to tear up. I
Speaker 3: just realized how much I've missed listening to you and
Speaker 3: Mom joke around. During the rest of the time, he
Speaker 3: continued to talk to my mother. After he'd been quiet
Speaker 3: for a while, I asked if she was still in
Speaker 3: the room. I see her, but I still don't quite
Speaker 3: believe it, he said. Maybe I really am hallucinating. I said,
Speaker 3: I work all day with people who hallucinate because they're
Speaker 3: hooked on opiates and pin meds. But you're not either
Speaker 3: one of those, and this doesn't seem like a hallucination.
Speaker 3: I know you so well, Dad, and this is exactly
Speaker 3: how it felt when you and Mom were together. I
Speaker 3: just wish I could see her too. He looked in
Speaker 3: the direction where my mother was. Can Angela see you?
Speaker 3: He suddenly asked. It seemed as if he were interpreting
Speaker 3: a foreign language when he finally replied, she loves you
Speaker 3: very much, but it's not time for you to see her.
Speaker 3: Is she solid looking or does she look like a ghost.
Speaker 3: She's a solid figure, honey, and a nice figure at that.
Speaker 3: No ghost here, he assured me. You know, when I
Speaker 3: was a kid, I learned that the smallest thing in
Speaker 3: the world was an atom. End of story. That was
Speaker 3: a fact. But now we know that there's so much more.
Speaker 3: So maybe your mom really is here. How do you
Speaker 3: feel right now, I asked, always the therapist. Happy, my
Speaker 3: dad said with the smile. I'm with my wife of
Speaker 3: more than sixty years. He paused for a moment and
Speaker 3: then went on, you know how much I love you, Angela.
Speaker 3: If your mom can be here for me, then we'll
Speaker 3: both come for you when it's time. But for now,
Speaker 3: I think i'd like to take a nap with my
Speaker 3: clean shaven face. That sounds fine. You go spend some
Speaker 3: time with mom. I love you. I love you too,
Speaker 3: he said, closing his eyes, almost as if he were
Speaker 3: in a dream. His lips mouthed some words as he
Speaker 3: dropped off to sleep that night. Dad died the next day,
Speaker 3: and I now know that love is more powerful than
Speaker 3: I ever thought possible, because not even death could diminish
Speaker 3: the bond between my parents. We have time for one
Speaker 3: lass story. This is by Diane. I am a counselor,
Speaker 3: and at the young age of sixty, I learned that
Speaker 3: deathbed visions are real. The experience taught me that who
Speaker 3: we meet might be totally different from whom we expect
Speaker 3: to meet. My birth father died when I was six
Speaker 3: years old, and I was raised by my wonderful stepfather, Jim.
Speaker 3: He married my mother when I was ten, and my
Speaker 3: sister two brothers, and I took to him instantly. Jim
Speaker 3: had seven siblings, so we also got five new uncles
Speaker 3: and two aunts in the deal. Jim stepped into his
Speaker 3: role as father naturally, being there at my high school
Speaker 3: graduation and walking me down the aisle when I got married.
Speaker 3: I didn't think about it at the time, but I
Speaker 3: never realized that all those aunts and uncles who brought
Speaker 3: so much much life and joy to my family would
Speaker 3: also bring death, grief, and heartache. I watched over the
Speaker 3: years as Jim lost sibling after sibling. We were all
Speaker 3: comforted to learn that Hugh, his eldest brother, had seen
Speaker 3: his deceased mother shortly before he died. As my remaining
Speaker 3: aunts and uncles passed away over the years, I couldn't
Speaker 3: help but wonder if they were forming their own greeting
Speaker 3: party in the afterlife. Sometime later, I got an urgent
Speaker 3: call from my mom that Jim was in the hospital
Speaker 3: and he was doing poorly. I flew home, hoping for
Speaker 3: the best, but knowing that health and age weren't on
Speaker 3: his side. He'd been fighting chronic heart failure for many years.
Speaker 3: My stepfather was released from the hospital, but he was
Speaker 3: so frail that he seemed to be practically melting into
Speaker 3: the bed. He was surrounded by his wife and four children,
Speaker 3: all of us grown up. We knew his steady decline
Speaker 3: was irreversible, but despite how weak he felt, Jim still
Speaker 3: managed to get out a joke or to to lighten
Speaker 3: the mood. Over the next few days, however, I watched
Speaker 3: Jim's body grow weaker. He spoke less often, and paragraphs
Speaker 3: became sentences. I thought about his siblings who had died
Speaker 3: over the years. Would they all come to meet him,
Speaker 3: would there be a family reunion? As my stepdad's last
Speaker 3: days were upon him, I stopped thinking about it, mainly
Speaker 3: because I was so focused on helping my mom. One day, though,
Speaker 3: one of my parents' friends was visiting, and she and
Speaker 3: her mother were chatting in the kitchen. I was with
Speaker 3: Jim when he suddenly looked up and asked, who are you?
Speaker 3: Then he began a conversation that only he could understand.
Speaker 3: I just listened as he talked and said, I was
Speaker 3: honored to be there, and I'm so glad you you
Speaker 3: saw it all. You're welcome. I'm grateful to you too.
Speaker 3: My thoughts were racing. Could he be having a vision?
Speaker 3: Was his mom here? Or maybe one of his siblings?
Speaker 3: Was it perhaps Hugh, the older brother who had died first.
Speaker 3: I couldn't contain myself any longer and asked, Dad, who
Speaker 3: are you talking to? Buddy? Who's that? He was thanking
Speaker 3: me for being a good dad. I was confused. All
Speaker 3: of my siblings were still living. Did Jim have a
Speaker 3: child that I didn't know about who had died? Since
Speaker 3: he didn't say anything else, I left the room and
Speaker 3: went to the kitchen where my mom was. Mom, do
Speaker 3: you know someone named Buddy? I asked her. My goodness,
Speaker 3: I hadn't thought of that name in years. She replied,
Speaker 3: where did you hear that? Dad just said it. Jim
Speaker 3: used to tease your father when they were in high school.
Speaker 3: Mom said, as a joke, he called him buddy, as
Speaker 3: if he couldn't remember his name. Dad knew my biological father.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 3: Suddenly I realized what had just happened. My birth father
Speaker 3: had come to greet the man who had raised my
Speaker 3: siblings and me. He wanted to thank Jim for taking
Speaker 3: care of his children. He was talking to Jim and
Speaker 3: thanking him for being such a great father. Mom and
Speaker 3: I cried together and were so grateful for my birth
Speaker 3: father's visit and his message of love. Well, my friend,
Speaker 3: I hope you enjoyed our time today. Don't forget to
Speaker 3: visit David Kessler's website grief dot com and come visit
Speaker 3: me that We Don't Die dot com. I'm Sandra Champlain.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for listening to Shades of the
Speaker 3: Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast Tocoast a m Paranormal
Speaker 3: Podcast Network.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
Speaker 2: a and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out
Speaker 2: all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
Speaker 2: to iHeartRadio dot com