At some point, our body will undertake one last journey – death. Here are three very different accounts of people who witnessed and underwent life-after-death experiences. All three make it very clear that we have nothing to fear during the process of transition.
Kathy and the Angel
Kathy was sitting in the hospital holding her dying mother’s hand. Somehow her mother clung on to life so Kathy made the decision to let go of her mom’s hand, hoping that her mother would make a quick and peaceful transition. Still, her mother lay there breathing. Her organs had failed and all Kathy wanted was for her mother to be free of pain and or her to be with her father who had died years before. Kathy whispered, “Why don’t you come for her, Dad?” Still nothing. Kathy’s heart was breaking. She wept with sadness.
Then from nowhere, she knew someone else was in the room with them. She looked up and saw what she can only describe as a ‘being’. It had huge folded wings and just hung in the air in a corner. Kathy was terrified. She describes its wings as ‘bird-like’. She thought that nothing that looked that bad could be good.
Then her mind flooded with memories, she couldn’t stop them, they flowed through her, comforting her. She says that they came so quickly, so fleetingly but left such a feeling of peace and well-being. It wasn’t until later she connected the memories with the ‘angel’. She also received a message from her mom telling her that whenever she, Kathy, placed her own hand on her face, she was to know that it was her mother giving her comfort. To this day, whenever Kathy needs reassurance, she places her hand on her cheek and knows her mother is there. She says the experience was a ‘profound gift’.
A Neurosurgeon Changes his Beliefs
Dr Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, who definitely believed that the near-death-experience is caused by the restriction of oxygen to the brain as a person slips from life to death, changed his mind after it happened to him. He was rushed into the hospital where he worked, with a rare form of E-coli bacterial infection that put him in a coma. He wasn’t expected to live, and if he did pull through, it would be in a vegetative state. The bacteria were eating his brain.
After seven days in a coma, doctors were considering whether to turn off the life-support. His cortex had literally turned off. Then Dr Alexander’s eyes opened.
He describes his experience as an adventure. While he lay, not only in a coma but without a functioning cerebral cortex, his consciousness went on a journey. He tells of being in a place of clouds, where he saw ‘beings’ streaking across a blue sky, leaving shimmering trails as they moved. He later says he knew they were ‘higher forms’ (of life). There was a sound, a low booming noise that appeared to be an expression of joy. The noise was almost tangible and he knew the beings were making it.
Dr Alexander describes his senses as not being separate. There was no seeing and hearing – it was all one. He became aware of a companion, a young woman, floating alongside him. He realized they were riding along a carpet and then he saw that there were a multitude of butterflies gliding through the sky and they were sitting on a butterfly wing. Colors were intense, iridescent, glowing – like nothing he’d ever experienced ‘on earth’. The woman looked at him and he felt love – not romantic or friendly as we would catergorize it, but pure, whole love.
He felt, rather than heard, her speaking to him, “You are loved and cherished forever. You have nothing to fear. You can do no wrong.” Dr Alexander said he experienced a profound feeling of relief, as though he’d been previously misunderstanding the whole point of living. He says it was like being ‘handed the rules of a game he’d been trying to play all his life’.
That was just the beginning. They traveled onward. Anytime he had a question, it was immediately answered in a crashing wave of knowledge. A glowing orb of light seemed to be accompanying them. He realized that the light was acting as an interpreter between himself and the vast presence around them. He found himself given understanding of concepts that would normally take a lifetime of study to grasp.
When he opened his eyes the meningitis had completely receded and his cortex functioned normally. Dr Alexander is still a doctor. He says reconciliating his training with his experience was difficult to come to terms with. There is no way a person can even dream while their brain is switched off. His view of life and death have changed forever and he has written a book, “Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife”
A Little Girl Falls into a Hollow Tree
Annabel Beam was diagnosed with a chronic digestive disorder at the age of four. She was in so much pain, she wanted to die. She told her mother she wanted to be free of pain and the only way was for her to die. Her mother, understandably was distraught. A few days later, Annabel climbed a tree with her sister. The branch she was sitting on broke and the child tumbled into the base of the tree, which was hollow.
She recounts that she died and that she knew she was dead. She tells of being held by Jesus and him saying to her that everything was going to be alright and that she would be rescued. He also said that when the fire crew got her out, she’d be cured. Annabel says that she asked Jesus if she could stay in heaven but he said no, there were things she had to do back on earth.
Once Annabel was rescued and pronounced alive, her symptoms began to recede and the need for medication reduced until she was completely well. Annabel’s story has been turned into a book by her mother and is now a movie, “Miracles from Heaven.”
The tree eventually toppled during bad weather but remains in the garden at the family home as a reminder of the miracle of the little girl who fell into a tree.
It seems that people go through only what their minds can deal with – that the life after death experiences are appropriate to their own level of understanding. For Kathy, it was reassurance, for Dr Alexander, the neurosurgeon, it was a full-on cosmic adventure, and for young Annabel it was a simple encounter with ‘Jesus in heaven.” Whatever level of near death experience people have, there’s no doubt that their lives are never the same afterward.