In 1989 my father was losing his 8-year battle with colon cancer. As I lay next to him, along with my step mother in the king-sized bed, I felt a strong need to close my eyes. It was nearly 1 am and had been a long couple of days watching him deteriorate. Just as I had relaxed for the first time, my stepmother touched me and said he’s gone. It truly felt like he had waited to leave when I wasn’t paying such close attention to him. What happened next is difficult to describe.

I felt as if he was taking my soul with him. I stood up quickly, staring into the upper part of the room toward the ceiling. At the same time the upper center of my chest felt a pulling hard to describe. It felt like there was some flexibility to the area of my chest, like it was stretchy. He pulled my soul? To the very point that it was about to be pulled from my body. It felt as if he recognized after a few moments that I wasn’t able to go with him and he released me. With a thud I was released and all was nearly back to normal. Of course, I was shaken and talking silently to myself, “What the hell was THAT?!” All I knew from that moment on is I was NEVER afraid of death and something funny is going on here in this world. 

I could not walk properly. It felt as if I had bed pillows on each foot so each step was taking a lot of effort. It did feel soft like walking a few inches above the ground or on marshmallows or bed pillows, but a bit clumsy. 

I also recall being exposed to what I believe to be a life review. I was not part of the review, just as an onlooker. I do not recall exactly how I knew about life review. I can only tell you in a conversation with my mother years later I vehemently defended the fact that when we die there is a holographic screen we each review our lives on. Of course, she was unaware of my experience. I had not found IANDS yet nor did I know the experience was called a Shared Death Experience (SDE). I had not told a soul about my experience and my mother and I were super open and close too! It just sounded stupid to bring it up in my mind. No one would be able to relate, is what I thought.  She had her own version of death she provided me from a biblical perspective. I was so frustrated with her. Poor woman had no idea what I was defending. 

In 2001 my mother died suddenly. She had called me at 6 am one Sunday morning trying to tell me she was not well. Because of some prior issues she had walking where I suspected a blood clot in her leg, I immediately told her to call 911. I called her back to make sure she got through and told her I would meet her at the hospital. 

On the way to the hospital I just knew this wasn't going to be good, just a gut feeling. I had a 20-minute drive and a red light caught me with no turn on red. I contemplated running the light but I was so spacey with fear I just sat wondering if she was okay.

Suddenly her voice came across to me telling me a thought I had had months prior. It wasn’t her audible voice but in a way it was. Again, this is hard to describe. It possessed her voice the way it sounded and it was clearly her, but not audible. I want to say it was telepathic, but it was her voice. I know it’s confusing but difficult to put into words. Anyway, I knew from this communication that she had died. I knew somehow she was able to see my thoughts from months prior which only meant she couldn’t have survived. Of course, she didn’t.

When I got to the hospital I was so upset because they weren’t telling me she died. I knew she did and the standard lengthy “we did all we could” speech only lengthened the inevitable hearing them verbally confirm her passing.

I had bid on a house the night prior to her death. When we went to move in, on top of the refrigerator was one of her belongings. Such a mystery how it got there. 

I had those word magnets that could be put together as sentences on my refrigerator. As I was hanging memories of my mom on my refrigerator with those magnets, randomly I grabbed two of them from the side of the refrigerator and they spelled out what she used to call my daughter, “Little girl.” It took my breath away. I believe once open to any type of experience in death, the universe opens all kinds of stuff to be processed or to confirm we don’t die. 

It would be 20 years almost to the day when I sat in a doctor’s office, waiting on a person to come out, that I read a Reader’s Digest article that mirrored my original experience I had with my dad. In that article, the woman may have referenced the term “shared death.” I can’t recall honestly. All I can tell you is from that day forward I began dancing in the streets! (metaphorically)

Eventually, I found a copy of Raymond Moody’s book and began a very focused intense search for the meaning of life. This news article in Readers Digest proved I wasn’t as crazy as everyone believed me to be, even before uttering a word of my SDE. (I think I may have always been blindly aware of spirit, if that makes any sense. And I was often considered different. I say I’m artistic.)

From that moment I was free!!! Of course, then I learned of IANDS. Unfortunately, the only local chapter was in Cincinnati and I now lived in Dayton about an hour away. I did eventually have the relief of telling my story in detail back around 2014 in Cincinnati. Thank you to those sweet IANDS members that watched me cry and supported me fully. 

A series of strange things happened after the 2009 sighting of this Reader’s Digest Shared Death Experience article. 

I was trying to help a friend with alcoholism and bought books on recovery for her. Of course I was the only one that would read them. When I did however, it provided information on meditation and maybe even like that helpers exist to help us if we reach out to them. I sat in meditation with some really great music and a beautiful guided voice just from a YouTube meditation on spirit guides. It would have been like my 3rd or 4th attempt to meditate and reach out to the universe to gain further understanding of what happened to me at my dad’s crossing over, my mom speaking to me, and the nature of reality. 

With determined intention to reach these “helpers,” I WAS ENVELOPED IN GOD’S LOVE AND LIGHT THRU THIS MEDITATION! The message to me was: you are loved! The feeling of it is what is so difficult to describe! I had tears streaming down my face and was still in deep surrender of meditation.

This all came in handy when I would desperately need it a year or so later. Life has been funny like that, each thing building on the next.

One of the first things that happened was that I was scolded by a dead person. Listen, I know this is all hard to believe, but I swear on my grandchild’s life that a grayish mist appeared in an upstairs bathroom at the ceiling level, when the alcoholic girl and I were bantering in fun (is what I thought). Her dead mother did not think that! Her scary statement to me, and I swear she seemed like she screamed it, was, “ENOUGH!!!!”  Just one word that scared the bejesus out of me and I flew downstairs. I don’t think I ever bantered with her daughter again. 

This same girl would play a very significant role in my growth, but that’s another whole story. 

So, I believe all the prior experiences kept me alive after a very rough time to come. I was about to find a way out through suicide when the single word “FIGHT” was also relayed to me as the two prior communications were. It shook me to my core, but at the same time made me even more curious. 

I know life is synchronistic. We cross paths with people that will further our growth. Nothing is as it seems. Lately life has been a lot less calm and no insights or communication from anyone, which seems a bit boring. ;) 

I always try to ask spirit source God or my guides to let me cheat a little, give me some clues, but I feel like they are saying listen we gave you more than we agreed. So, I will just keep putting one foot in front of the other until something more comes along.  

I thank you, IANDS!!!! You’ve been a huge part of my feeling semi-normal. I cannot express what your existence has meant to me. I write this to you in hopes others will come forward with similar cracks in their realities. It’s always nice to know someone with similar experiences. I wish I knew the answer to wealth. I would donate to make sure you always exist. Thank you!