Happiness, Tragedy, and Knowing You Are Going to Die

QUESTION

“Thanks for researching and writing your wonderful Big Book of Near-Death Experiences. It helped me tremendously following the sudden death of my son Jack. I have a question and I think you may be about the only person who might know the answer. Eight hours before Jack’s accident, my wife Debbie felt the happiest she had been in her entire life. Have you ever come across this phenomenon (supreme happiness immediately before tragedy)? Sending you love and light”.....Dave

ANSWER

Oh, my goodness, Dave. That is right on for the majority of people. Please read my book We Live Forever: The Real Truth About Death (I also wrote about this in other books of mine, too). What you are looking for is that section in any of my books that says something about “The Coming of Full Death,” a pattern I found true for the majority of people.

My background is richly laden with the kinds of activities most people never face. I just came in that way. . . . along with that, a driving need to know the truth, to research every little thing. I did this as a cook, as a child, as a mother, as a human being. To be frank, I have been tearing up the world around me and everyone else for nearly 80 years. I just have this need to understand things - perhaps because I was born with dyslexia and synesthesia. Not just with me, but with dozens and hundreds and thousands of others. Never was I ever satisfied with what I knew or what was true for me. It always had to be true for everyone else or nearly everyone else.

So, about knowing ahead of time about the coming of full death. Yes, yes, yes. That is NORMAL. It is true more than it isn’t. Most people know (the individual who is about to die - or - loved ones of that individual), usually about six months before, sometimes three months before. In the weeks before, usually 6 to 8 weeks in advance, the individual about to die starts acting differently - as if getting their affairs in order then was important to him or her. This behavior change can become almost an obsession. . . until 2 to 3 days before death. Then he or she becomes calm, bright, happy, wide awake, and at peace - almost as if “all is well” and everything is okay. Death usually comes fairly quickly after that. You can usually tell by the reported appearance of “visitors,” those beings who come to help that individual pass over. Ask any nurse or hospice staffers, and they’ll tell you about “visitors.” Doctors usually scoff at such things. Yet those who manage the process, know all about “visitors” and how reliable they are concerning the coming of full death (I say “full” death, as opposed to “near-death” when the individual comes back).

Now, with relatives or friends who are close to the individual, they too often pick up something is about to happen. Sometimes people will have visions of what is about to come, or dreams, yet the closer to death the individual is the more apt those close to the individual will in some way pick it up. And, after the individual dies, it is utterly amazing to me how good those left behind feel, maybe even for several weeks or months. Seldom will people discuss this. Most often because feeling good about a loved one’s death seems wrong or wicked or not right. People just don’t talk about these kinds of things, and they must. We all need to share, totally share, tell all. The book I recommended does that. The premise of the book wraps around the death of our granddaughter Myriam - much too young to die - still, what happened with the family and friends was amazing. We all gathered in a circle before and after ceremony and talked and talked. Everyone there knew that Myriam was going to die before she did, some even months before. We all knew. All of us, except for her father. Why he was the only handout, I do not know.

It is important for families and friends to share, to talk, to be together.

We don’t talk in this society and we need to. When we do, we discover how absolutely amazing life and death are and how connections between us are far greater that we could ever imagine.

When you feel good about this, get my book Dying to Know You: Proof of God in the Near-Death Experience. My newest, which would also be helpful is A Manual for Developing Humans. I am so glad you shared this precious experience with me. Many blessings, PMH