Why are we here? What happens when we die? I found some authors who offer some answers and who say there’s no reason to fear death at all.
“In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife” is a first-person account by Sebastian Junger of his near-death experience. Since Junger, author of “The Perfect Storm,” is a serious journalist, I was interested in what he had to say.
Junger tells us that at age 58 he had a medical condition that nearly killed him. It began with an occasional pain that he ignored. When what caused the pain finally attacked him, he collapsed while out walking in the woods. In a harrowing narrative, he describes the frantic rush to get him to the hospital, where no one could figure out what was wrong with him. Meanwhile, he was losing a lot of blood. “My brain wasn’t working well enough to understand that I was dying,” he writes. But as his life force was slipping away, he saw his deceased father: “There he was, not so much floating as simply existing above me. … He was not so much a vision as a mass of energy configured in a deeply familiar way as my father.”
After the doctors saved him, he was left full of questions: What is death? What is life? “What if there were some kind of post-death existence? What if the dead were not entirely gone, in the sense that we understand that word, and the living were not entirely bound by time and space?” He writes, “We assume that life is the most real thing we will ever experience, but it might turn out to be the least real, the least meaningful.”
When he told a nurse it was terrifying that he’d almost died, she told him: “Instead of thinking of it as something scary, … try thinking of it as something sacred.” So he examines religion, philosophy, science, the origin of the universe, consciousness, quantum physics, and quantum mechanics, all in a way that’s understandable. He relates anecdotes from combat experience, from literature, and from his family history.
Seeing his deceased father left him with a tranquility, he writes, with “the knowledge that when we finally close our eyes, someone will be there to watch over us as we head out into that great, soaring night.”
Whatever your belief system, this book will make you think!
A hospice nurse, Hadley Vlahos, R.N., has written “The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life’s Final Moments.” She explains her job: “As a hospice nurse, I’m there to help guide both the patient and their loved ones through the process, and to keep the patient as comfortable and pain-free as possible.” Her job involves medical treatment, of course, but sometimes it’s important for her just to be there, treating each one respectfully. She shares incidents with several of her hospice patients as they faced mortality. Yes, this is about people who are dying, but the stories are generally uplifting and heartwarming.
Describing “moments leading from this life to whatever comes next,” she tells us there’s a “tangible shift in the air in that moment when a person leaves their body.” She writes, “The one thing I can tell you for certain is that there are things that defy medical explanation, and that in between here and whatever comes next, there is something powerful and peaceful.”
The number one takeaway from the book: As people near the end, they often see and talk with deceased loved ones. It’s a normal phenomenon, she says. “Patients from all different religious and non-religious backgrounds were having spiritual encounters that I couldn’t ignore.”
Books about near-death experiences (NDEs) probably became popular with psychiatrist Raymond Moody’s intriguing “Life After Life,” first published in 1975. “The Girl Who Visited Heaven and Other Children’s Near-Death Experiences” by A.J. Parr recounts similar incidents, but in these cases it’s children ages 2 to 9 who recovered from a near-death condition and who relate what they experienced after they “died” and came back.
Parr says children’s NDEs can be considered even more meaningful than adults’ because “They have less exposure to religious and cultural beliefs about death, and their innocence and sincerity make their experiences often more believable.” Children “report the same common elements often reported by adults,” including seeing a dark tunnel, a bright light, a life review, being out of body, and more. They may or may not encounter a spiritual deity or a paradise. They often have “feelings of peace, joy, universal connectedness” and interact with deceased friends and relatives. Some say they were sent back to complete their mission or life plan. Many become psychic or even verifiably precognitive afterward.
He starts with an in-depth look at the first childhood NDE ever reported: Kristle, who drowned at age 7, said she “met Jesus and the Heavenly Father.” She described heaven, where “Everything just radiated with love. … It felt like home. And I was greeted by my aunts and uncles and some of their friends.” One child later said, “I know that God is absolutely present in everything and everywhere. Heaven is here and now.” A 3-year-old who had a “life review” that included a past life said, “There is no time; it’s all one moment. … We’re ageless. We’re timeless.”
The book also shares insights from some of the field’s top researchers. There’s quite a bit of repetition in the book, but it’s fascinating and easy to read. Parr also mentions several other books for further reading.
“Glimpses of Heaven: Dream Visitations from the Afterlife — and a Visit to Eternity” was written by The Portager’s own Thomas Hardesty. Tom’s an award-winning sports journalist, and his writing is a joy to read. (Tom and I were also colleagues at The Record-Courier.)
This is an intimate memoir of growing up as a sports-loving boy in Northeast Ohio. He includes warm and personal character sketches of family (and a telepathic cat) and entertaining anecdotes of family life. But his intention is to reveal that he was “visited” by several loved ones who had died. “Heaven is real,” he tells us. “While I slept, my dad showed me Heaven. Some may say he came to me in a dream, but I call it a visitation within the dream state.” He relates his visitations from deceased relatives, in which “They have relayed messages, delivered dire warnings that soon came to pass and offered reassurance.”
He starts out by looking at faith vs. science, arguing on the side of faith. He ponders, “Who’s to say that the laws of physics themselves aren’t actually divine in nature, that the equations of physics, taken collectively, aren’t in fact the mind of God?” Ah, nice!
He describes his trip to Heaven, where he experienced “overwhelming love.” If you’d like more Christianity in your spiritual visions, this is the book for you. His accounts are moving and inspirational. I eagerly recommend the book.
Happy reading!
Mary Louise Ruehr is a books columnist for The Portager. Her One for the Books column previously appeared in the Record-Courier, where she was an editor.