One thing we know is life will one day end for us all. That being said, one thing we do not know is what happens after. People who have had near-death experiences oftentimes share what it was like, and it can be comforting.
Here are some of the comments that resonated the most with people:
1.
“I remind myself of the billions of people (and animals) who have gone through it already. It’s like when I was doing my driving test and I would look at other people and think, ‘If they are able to drive, then surely I can!‘ You’ll be joining all your ancestors, Marilyn Monroe, Jesus, the Queen Elizabeths, Einstein, William Wallace, James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, the Kennedys, Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther King, Matthew Perry, Sir Walter Raleigh, Winston Churchill, William Wallace, all the Egyptian Kings and Queens, Julius Caesar, all the classical composers, plus billions of others, of all types and backgrounds. If they can all do it, so can you…”
2.
“My wife passed away of stomach cancer at the very young age of 33. She did not want to die, and she fought to the very end, but it was inevitable. She was seeing relatives that had come to take her. I feel like I’ve gotten a lot of signs from her, but one in particular was when she came into my dream, and we were at a casino together. She won the jackpot. I woke up, and saw that as a sign to play lottery that day, so I did. I won $200. I have learned so much after her passing. I now understand death is just part of life.”
3.
“Yes, there is an afterlife. I know because I went there! I’m NOT kidding. It’s the best feeling in the world. I was in my 30s. I was having major surgery, and I ended up dying on the table. I was told that I was gone for almost three minutes. While I was ‘dead,’ I saw a light coming through a window on the side wall of the hall I was walking down. I walk with a cane and have chronic pain due to a previous industrial accident. But, when I was ‘dead,’ I didn’t need the cane, and I had no pain at all. At the end of the hall were people and relatives who had passed away years before, and they were all waving and calling me down to be with them. I almost got to the end of the hall when, all of a sudden, I got pulled backward, and I woke up to all these doctors over me. I was screaming at the top of my lungs that I wanted to go back…”
4.
“Without a doubt, there is something on the other side. When my mom was in her last moments, she saw something brilliantly illuminate before her eyes, something I couldn’t see, but her face was lit like a child at Christmas. I held her hand, and she looked back at me with a little sadness, but whatever she saw was joyous and calling to her, and she peacefully drifted away. Before my cousin’s mother passed, she told her daughter she saw her dead relatives; her last words were, ‘Look! They are coming for me…’ Another Aunt was 101 years old, in the hospital, and failing. She was totally unaware that her younger sister, at 96 years old, had died days before. That aunt floated in and out of consciousness and was heard having a conversation with her recently deceased sister. She could not have known this sister had passed on. I do not pretend to know, but I have many personal references that there is something good on the other side. And I’m not afraid.”
5.
“My sweet 21-year-old daughter died in a car wreck in January 1999. I had introduced her to reenacting (living history). She absolutely loved it and went with me and her dad when she could. She also fell in love with the fleur-de-lis. After she passed, I needed buttons for some men’s 18th-century shirts, so I went to my favorite sewing store and came upon some I didn’t really care for, but ended up buying probably 30 of them, asking myself, ‘Why are you buying something you don’t like?’ As I began to sew on these ugly buttons, a sun beam shone down directly on the button to reveal it was rows of fleur-de-lis! I started laughing and said, Amy Lou, (I called my daughter Amy Lou) stop making me buy buttons that only you like! It brought a lot of happiness to me to know she was still hanging out with her ‘mom.’ I know when I cross over, she will be one of the first people I see. My folks both passed away, and I know they are watching over her.”
6.
“The day my mom died, I knew five minutes before the call. I had this strong, cold feeling in my chest that expanded to my whole body within seconds. I looked at the time and it was 9:25 p.m. She passed away at 9:25 p.m., and I felt her come to say goodbye. Another time, on my birthday at 9:25 a.m., a bird flew to my balcony window. She loved birds. My dad was in a home for Alzheimer’s patients. I went to feed him and hug him almost every dinner time or after work since it was close by. Two years to the day after my dad passed, I had to deliver flowers as I am a delivery driver. Due to COVID, the flowers could not be delivered, and I was told to keep them. The card inside said, ‘I hope these flowers make you feel as special as you make me feel every day.’ I believe that was my dad. So, yes. I believe energy cannot be destroyed. It just shifts into another dimension. You can call it heaven. I call it love.”
7.
“I’m an end-of-life caregiver. Not hospice, not palliative care. I help people who want to die in their homes and make it as comfortable as I can for them. Every single one of my clients saw family members who had passed before them at least a week or two before they died. The family members would wave or smile, but never talk. I never grew up religious, but working in the field for 18 years, my beliefs have changed. I like to think of it more as the movie What Dreams May Come, because it really, truly is unknown what happens after death. But, after seeing what I have seen, I believe more and more in the afterlife, maybe even reincarnation.”
8.
“I can only answer this from my experience when I died. I didn’t see an afterlife; I saw my grandmother, who was telling me to go back because it wasn’t my time, it was hers. Then I felt cold air and woke up. They told me, ‘Your brain misfiring can make you see things that aren’t real.’ But I saw her, smelled her, and hugged her, so I don’t think my brain misfired. When I told my family what I saw, everyone almost fainted because I wasn’t aware my grandmother had passed at the same time I had died and come back to life.”
9.
“Ask any hospice nurse. They all have seen people talking to those ‘on the other side.’ My grandmother called me to her room on her last night. She pointed to an empty chair (it was my grandfather’s desk chair) and said, ‘There’s a man sitting there!’ She wasn’t alarmed, but more surprised. I told her grandpa was probably there, making sure she was okay. She was gone the next morning, looking peaceful. I am sure grandpa took her back with him.”
10.
“I watched my brother die from lung cancer (he never smoked). He did not want to leave his family, and he was staring at the wall, waving his hand, saying, ‘Go away.’ They were waiting to take him. A couple of nights ago, I dreamt about him, and he walked towards me and we hugged each other, crying. I could feel him holding me tight, and I woke up knowing without a doubt that we were hugging each other. I am not worried about dying. I know they will be there waiting for me, too. There is this existential thing about death that is hard to comprehend. The older I get, the closer it is. There is no way to avoid it. So breathe, enjoy the journey. You know the saying, the only thing for certain is death and taxes.”
If you’ve experienced something that has helped you profoundly when it comes to thinking about death, let us know in the comments or use the form below if you wish to remain anonymous!