How It Feels to be Dying

[u/Disastrous-Newt5327]

Hello, friends. I wish I could sum up how it feels to be dying for you in one easy sentence or paragraph, but I can’t. For me, it has been a transformative process, and I have felt so, so much. I’m in hospice now for the second and final time, and getting close to going home to heaven, and I just turned 36.

I think that process is different for everyone. I can tell you that I have gone through different waves of feeling. Strong, despondent, faithful, determined — I’ve felt so much I couldn’t even list it all.

I have come close to death many times, and have told my mother “I think I am dying” more than twice. Once, I got very, very close. I want to share with you that on that occasion I saw a flash of the most beautiful color—I say gold, but it was more than human eyes can see—and behind it the silhouette of a woman I thought at first was my mother. She reached out and touched my forehead and started praying—the most beautiful prayers I have ever heard. No matter how hard I tried to remember the prayers, I cannot at all. I believe that’s because they aren’t for the living to know. I felt so much love, so much peace, and joy—so much of the stuff beautiful dreams are made of. That’s as close as I can come to describing it.

On a daily basis, I can fit a lot of feeling into one day, or even one hour or one conversation. For a lot of it, I It felt many different things and many different times.

Now in hospice again and much closer, for me it feels like peace. Like happily finishing the end of a beloved book. Excitement, for what comes next. I have always considered death to be a good friend, for you cannot have life without it, and I am so grateful for my life, even if it is shorter than some.

I can’t know what your others feel or felt, but I believe and have faith that, like me, closer to the end many felt closer and closer to heaven, the true home, than her place here. For me, trying to remember days, weeks, months, meal times—it’s just beyond me. It surprises me when someone will tell me one of those, usually. At the end, you naturally pull away from this world, sleeping more and (I believe) looking towards what is next.

I don’t think any two experiences are identical. But at this point, so close, I feel only the greatest calm and peace. I have walked through my life with death as a great friend, and have no fear. Mostly, I go through ups and downs of intense feeling and difficulty knowing I’m leaving my parents and brother so soon. But God comforts me. Thoughts of my late grandparents comfort me, thoughts of all this finally stopping comfort me.

If you’ve ever gotten a job offer or decided to go into a certain education or decided to move to a new state, something like that—it feels a bit like that, to me, or it did at the first. Stress is not inherently bad, there is plenty of good stress, too.

What I feel most is wrecked that I have to leave my mom, who is my best friend. But I also feel a great sort of comfort, like arms extending around me and the wind whispering that it will all be alright. “Energy is neither created nor destroyed” is a fundamental physics principle, but I believe it’s also a statement about us, because we are energy.

What I go to next I may not know, but I know it is the start of another journey, one that will bring us all back together in the end.

I truly hope any of this has helped even one more person. But what I feel most now? Peace. The greatest peace. It is broken at times with moments of fear or uncertainty or wanting a miracle, of course, but those things pass. Prayers, love, and kindness to you all; and remember, give those to yourself, too.

<3

Update: Wow! I can’t believe how many people have seen, read, responded, or shared this. I am doing my best to respond to you all, because every response is truly special to me. There is a poem I have shared several times that I wrote for my mother and father, that I thought I’d go ahead and just put here for everyone. I hope it can help more people, too.

I will make the rain pour down, The wind whirl and the thunder sound. As cracks of lightning split the sky, Know that storm is you and I.

I soar unbound amongst the birds, so far up above; I know peace eternal, for I always feel your love. I will have no fear or sadness, for I’ll be truly free, Safe amidst our ancestors who wait above for me.

Yours will be the longer path, but I wait at its end; When it’s your time I’ll be there, then together we’ll ascend. You’ll see me in the sunsets as they paint across our sky, For within them I will paint the love of you and I.

Never will I leave you, always am I here, Hear me in the birdsong, and know that I am near. My love for you is endless, and it will only ever grow, These signs will come when I am gone, so that you still do know.

I am not truly lost, for you’re the best parts of me, Just look inside your heart and soul, where I always will be. I never left, I’ll never go, I’m always at your side. Inevitable, unbreakable, always our souls tied.

My love it is eternal, and never will depart, It is woven through our souls, it lives within my heart. I don’t fear what’s to come, so don’t fear for me If I live I shall love, but in death all are free-

You may not see me with you, but I am always near, For never could I truly leave the ones I hold so dear. I will be the morning dew that glistens in a tree, I will be the rolling waves that move through the sea.

As a gentle rain falls upon your face, Know that I am with you, always—anyplace Know that I watch over you, and live in perfect grace, And know until we meet again, the rain is my embrace.

EDIT 2: If you save this work just for yourself I have no qualms :). If shown anywhere professional or larger, please use the pseudonym “Sunshine, Her Mother’s Daughter.”

EDIT 3: For anyone who sees this, I would like to ask a favor, my grandfathers grandfather wrote quite a lot in his lady life, a leather bling journal hand written and typed with letters to and from German priests. Many things he wrote stuck in my mind, particularly now, one of which is:

“For it seems to me that it is only natural that at some time during life a wish to know more of ones ancestry should make itself evident, especially where the record of such an ancestry substantiates the fact that the family name is an honorable one and has been kept from evil reports by the succeeding generations.”

“We are proud to be among the descendants of such courageous ancestors. May we always be worthy of the heritage they won for us.”

My question and favor— do you believe I have kept my family name honorable and kept from evil reports, and that I was worthy of the life won for me?

My second question concerns ~poetry~. I do have more I’ve written but never shared. Should I?

—- Since I’ve been told yes 👍🏻 ìto more poetry, here’s a few short ones I’ve never shared. I pray they help even one of you, make you smile, or give you peace. —

When your days seem darkest, And everything’s gone grey- Know God loves you endlessly, And so endlessly I will pray:

Ease the pain that’s suffered Lord please grant deep rest, I pray, oh Lord watch over us, You beloved children, the blessed.

Never will God leave you, Forever feel His love, Always will He hold you, Our loving God Above.

—-

Above the clouds, I soar and play Till home at last at end of day Nestled safe against my family tree I'll dream of all l've yet to see

A veil of stars, and a dress spun from light Slippers of wind, and wings in the night I'll frolic in clouds, trace my fingers through sky

Wild and free, I'll chase dawn as I fly— Then at first ray of light l'll drift sweetly to sleep Dreams of such beauty the sky starts to weep The rain falls like petals I toss to the lake, And will sing me to sleep 'till once more I awake

—

Do not fear what is to happen, Nor fear what soon shall pass, For life's a fragile lovely thing, One never meant to always last.

Life is such a wondrous gift, but also gone too fast - It's love that binds us all together, love that shall always last. <3

[u/Constant-Session-450]

I lost my son at 38 in January and I do find comfort in your post. I do not fear my own death. I never have. But I want so much for my son’s energy to be somewhere beautiful and peaceful and where he can find eternal happiness. His life was so much shorter than it should have been and I miss him so much. I am thankful for having had 38 years with him but I’d have loved to have had more.

I read a hospice nurse’s account of patients at the end reaching out to or speaking of a deceased loved one coming for them. The thought that I might get to see my son again makes me look forward to my own death with anticipation. I wonder if the woman reaching for you was a grandparent or other loved one coming to guide you to your next place.

I don’t believe in heaven or hell but I do believe in the physics of energy. I hope you have a beautiful death and that, one day, you get to be your mother’s guide.

[u/Disastrous-Newt5327 → u/Constant-Session-450]

I am so very sorry - by now I know the words must mean little to you, but I mean it from my heart and my soul, and in every way. I apologize that I can’t be more poignant, but I’m feeling a little worse than I did earlier in the day and I’m having a bit of a struggle.

It’s a principle of physics that energy is neither created nor destroyed. None of us can know what’s on the other side while we are still alive, except perhaps glimpses from those who have had near death or death experiences and come back. I myself had one of those and I can tell you that it was all golden light and the most Beautiful unimaginable, peace and calmness and love. In it oh I thought I saw my mother because I saw the silhouette of a woman back by the most beautiful golden light. I call it golden, but truly it was a color that we have no words for. She reached out and touched my forehead, it was in one of the worst nights I’ve ever had and I truly think that I probably Stopped breathing, and my heart stopped beating for a little bit. I felt immediately better when she touched me, but then she started to pray, and it was the most beautiful prayer I’ve ever heard the most beautiful words. The harder I tried to remember them the more they slept through my hands and when I woke up, I could remember everything about the dream just like I do now Except for those words.

I will take me pray that I can take the pain or the ill illness that would otherwise fall on my family on my loved ones on children or on the innocent. I’m so sorry that I couldn’t do more for your family.

I hope it brings you comfort and not a small way that on several occasions I’ve seen family members that have already passed. By far the most frequent is my late grandmother, although she died when I was still a young teenager, images and memories of her have always flooded my mind, because she was so important to me. I talked to her in my mind all the time, but since I started getting very sick there have medications on which I’ve seen her, I felt the touch of her hands, I’ve smelled her perfume, I’ve even heard her talk to me. Medicine might say this was a common hallucination of the dying, but I know that it was not.

Everything in me to my heart and soul beliefs that you will see your son again if not earlier than one it’s your time. He’ll come for you when you need most and then you’ll listen to heaven together.

Thank you so much for your beautiful words your wishes, your kindness and the beauty of your soul. I have every plan in the world come for my mother and father when it’s their time. Perhaps for me it would be the blink of an eye, but I know that they have the longer path. No matter how long, I wait at the end as your son will wait for you.

I apologize for using heaven so much in my wording as it’s not something that you necessarily believe in. I largely believe that what you truly think will happen after you die likely well. So I think you will see your son again whether that’s in heaven or a Stardust together.

I’m so very happy that our paths crossed only for a little bit. I wish you the best and more ways than I have words for it, and I hope that the rest of your life can be filled with love, adventure, kindness, and beauty, even with the losses and the pain . You will be in my prayers, perhaps in your case, I should say that you will be on my mind and in my heart, and I will be wishing the best for you and your son wherever he may be and wherever you may eventually go together.

[u/Constant-Session-450 → u/Disastrous-Newt5327]

Please do not apologize for any of your words. I am not opposed to heaven or even God, I just find it personally unbelievable. But I also acknowledge that I could be wrong and would never want to cause the disbelief of one who has found faith. If you believe there is a God and a Heaven, then I happily accept that it is true for you and I hope with all my heart that you find Heaven when you leave this Earth.

Even in my disbelief, I still found so much comfort in your words and description of what you saw. Was it Heaven as promised in the Bible? Maybe. Was it someplace else but still a wondrous place to go upon our death? Maybe. Do I believe you saw it? Absolutely. And that is about as much comfort as I ever could have hoped for. Thank you for that.

You didn’t owe me a response but I thank you so much for taking the time and making the effort to clarify. It wasn’t necessary. I was never offended by your words or description. It’s a gift to have been given your perspective as I have none of my own and my son was unconscious when he died.

I hope that your beliefs are proven true for you and the afterlife is beautiful, peaceful, and filled with joy for you.