John Canta recounts a beautiful story about his Nana, her passing, and after-death communication with her.

"My Nana was 82 in 1996. She was in decent health and, then, somewhat suddenly, suffered two heart attacks. She went to the hospital. During that time in the hospital, I remember I had stopped at a vending machine in the hall of the hospital to purchase a candy bar to abate my hunger. I had not known when I went to visit that Nana was on a diet restriction.

I walked into Nana's hospital room eating the chocolate candy bar. As soon as she saw it, she pleaded with me to give her a bite as they weren't letting her eat anything due to her heart and testing. I felt really bad and wanted to sneak her a piece but my mom and the nurse said she couldn't. I remember my Nana was almost in tears because she couldn't have some of my candy bar. 

Nana recovered and was sent home. She was home for a few weeks when her heart started acting up again. She returned to the hospital for a month and then was transferred to a nursing home.

There was a lot of contention amongst her children. My  mom and one uncle wanted Nana to live with one of them as they could give her round the clock care. The other three of Nana's children felt she was best cared for in a nursing home. In a vote of 3-2, the nursing home won out.

Nana was coherent when she went into the home. She started getting much worse soon after and developed kidney failure, too.

I had not been visiting Nana because I was 20 years old and struggling with the idea of her being in a nursing home. The day I did visit, my mom was there. She  stepped out of the room for a brief time and left us alone. 

Nana seemed out of it, completely unaware of her surroundings and me, until she looked over at me from her hospital bed and said with complete clarity, ‘Johnny, I saw a plan for you but it didn’t work out.’ I asked her what she meant but she didn’t answer and returned to her prior condition of being unaware.

That was the last time  I saw her. Nana passed a week or two later. To this day, I still try to interpret what Nana meant by her comment and what she was actually seeing.

Nana would come to me often in my dreams after she passed. I remember one vivid dream that happened several weeks to a month after she passed. 

In the dream she was with me in my car and I asked her what she wanted to do and she asked me to take her for a ride. We wound up in front of a Target store and she asked me to go in and get her candy. When I returned with the chocolate, she thanked me and began eating it. We just sat in the car while she ate and then she told me she loved me.

I really believe Nana was contacting me from the other side.

In the years that followed I would have frequent dreams of her sitting in her reclining chair in her home. (Pictured above) Unfortunately, she never spoke to me again but I had the reoccurring dream of her sitting in her reclining chair in her old house for close to 20 years. 

During that time I got married, started a family and had two daughters. My wife and I named my first daughter's middle name after my Nana. Nana's name was Jenny but in Italian her birth name was Giavanni and her family would almost call her Gianni, so it sounded like Jonny.  So we decided to honor my Nana we gave our first born daughter the middle name Giavanni. 

From the second my daughter was born, it was uncanny how much she resembled Nana. 

One day, I took my toddler daughter to a basketball game in Philadelphia and drove down the street where my Nana lived. I showed my daughter where I grew up and where her Great Nana and my mom had lived. I will never forget the following as long as I live. My daughter was in her car seat in the back and she matter of factly responded " I lived there. too. once upon a star."

I told my mom that night what my daughter had said and we both speculated that perhaps my daughter was Nana reincarnated. 

***

So here's how the story ends.

Last year The Philadelphia Eagles won the Superbowl. I promised my daughter who was 10 at the time that we would go to,the celebratory parade.

She and I picked a spot along the parade route in my childhood neighborhood. After the parade was over, we had to walk about ten blocks to my car. Along the the way, we passed my Nana's old block.

I asked my daughter if she would like to see where her Great Nana and I and my mom had lived as she didn't remember me showing it to her when she was three years old. We walked to my Nana's house and I asked my daughter to stand at the bottom of the steps so I could take a photo of her in front of the house.

As I am taking her photo, this guy and his daughters pass us and walk up the steps. He turns around and, somewhat annoyed, said,  'Look at this these people want to take a photo in front of my house.' 

I said " I'm sorry I'm taking a photo, but I lived here years ago and it was my Nana's house.' 

He asked me what my Nana's name was and I told him her name was Jenny Bruno.  He, in seeming shock said, I still get mail in her name to this day. After that his demeanor changed and he asked if we would like to come into the house and take a tour.  

So there we were in my old Nana's house. The man had completely redone the inside. He had moved in about ten years after she had passed.  I told him my story about how close I was to my Nana and I showed him the photo of my Nana and me in the house. He asked if I would like to recreate the photo with my daughter in the same spot in the house. (Photo below.)

Here is the clincher. Above the spot where my Nana had her recliner, he had a giant picture of the Brooklyn bridge. My Nana was actually born in Brooklyn. That synchronicity blew my mind.  And, he had a chair almost in the same spot she had her recliner. 

I thanked him and we exchanged contact info. He asked if my Nana was and Eagles fan and I told him how she would sit in her recliner and watch the Eagles every Sunday.

Since we went inside my Nana's house, I have not had a dream of her since. 

I often wonder if getting to see her house one last time helped me have closure. And, I ask myself if my daughter getting to go into the house perhaps brought part of Nana's soul closure , especially if she really is my reincarnated Nana."

Janet Tarantino had a very rich afterlife experience during her mother’s illness.
 
“In April 2016, my mother had a mini stroke. She began having visions. She saw a medicine man standing at the end of her bed and there were little dogs occasionally running through her room. She saw animals on the walls and ceilings and in her bed with her. The ceiling was glowing in the color fuchsia. Unfortunately, in this world, none of us could share in what she was seeing.
 
One day I went into her room to check on her. When I walked up to her bed, she said, ‘I’m dying to ask you a question.’ I told her she could ask me anything. She giggled and pulled the sheet up over her mouth since she didn’t have her teeth in. I asked her what she wanted to ask me. She began mumbling to me something that I couldn’t understand.
 
I asked her if she was sleeping and she said she wasn’t. I asked her who I was and she said my name. I asked these things to ensure she was truly awake. She appeared to be but I wanted to make sure.
 
I questioned her on what she was seeing and she said, ‘I’m seeing names and numbers, numbers associated with names.’
 
The medicine man was dressed in a yellow robe, she said, with a hood up on his head. He had two feathers sticking up in the air. He had white paint on his face, like war paint. She later saw the same medicine man standing before her dressed in a red robe.
 
I believe my mother was on the edge of death and she was indeed asking questions, but was not directing them to me. I believe she was directing her questions to a spiritual being we could not see. And, she was giggling like a child and ended up covering her entire head as she giggled. I later asked her what the question was that she was wanting to ask me and she said that she couldn’t remember it.
 
Mother was not on hallucinogenic medicine at the time.
 
The Medicine Man seemed to heal mom because she is here still and 87 years old. There is no doubt in my mind that this was a near death experience as the bedside clock kept changing times even though we would keep fixing it and the television quit working in the room and we had to get a new one.
 
I, myself, have had three near-death experiences. I have stood with God or Jesus (I couldn’t see his face) and asked him, while we were looking down on the Earth from far in space, ‘What’s it all about?’
 
God or Jesus (I believe it was God) answered my questions by saying ‘Behold’ as he raised his hand from his side, palm up. Lines started being created, racing from places to places all over Earth and out into the universe. I understood these to be different dimensions he was showing me. I remember saying, ‘Ohhh, I understand. It’s all about math.’ And God/Jesus agreed. So, my mother seeing names and numbers and names associated with numbers makes sense in the spiritual world." 


​Dr. Kenneth Ring writes about Better Dying Through Chemistry in The University of Heaven's blog Illuminating. Learn about this or other fascinating information about near-death, shared death, or after-death communication.

Nick had a shared psychic experience with his father as he passed away.
 
“My father was in the hospital slowly passing away from pancreatic cancer. He was in a medical-induced coma. I was sitting at his bedside in a room full of people. I was the only one sitting at his side and at the moment was the only one paying attention to him.
 
My thoughts were overcome with details on what to do with Dad’s house, belongings and finances. I was afraid everything was going to be up to me to handle. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do because there was nothing else to do except wait. The doctors had said Dad’s death was imminent.
 
Dad suddenly opened his eyes, lifted his head, looked up at me, and said, ‘Down the middle.’ Some people asked what he had said and others went right on talking. Dad looked at me, again, right in the eyes and said, ‘Down the middle.’ I nodded my head in agreement and he dropped his head back to the pillow.
 
That was the only time Dad had uttered a word to me while he was passing. Later that night, my sister and I were the only ones attending Dad. She left the room to go talk with someone. As she walked out the door, he took his last breath.”

Interested in near-death, shared-death or after-death communication? Discover The University of Heaven's blog "Illuminating". 

Linda Engeseth was so moved by the beauty and intensity of her father's death experience, it took "every ounce" of the fear of dying from her. 

Linda recounts the story of her father’s death:
 
“My father was in his eleventh year of Alzheimer’s disease. He was being cared for in a home. I was called at 3 a.m. one morning and told to come as quickly as possible because he was dying.
 
As I sat by his side, my father rolled over in bed, looked at me directly in the eyes and said, plain as day and as if he was perfectly lucid, ‘I’m dying, and I’m scared.’ He had not spoken that clearly in years.
 
Dad then laid back down. He stared at the ceiling in complete wonderment, like a child at Disneyland. He said, 'Isn’t that beautiful?’
 
And, then he began reaching for the ceiling with both hands and said, ‘Mamow, Mamow’ over-and-over again.
 
My mother (my parents were divorced) later told me that Mamow was the name my father called his grandmother when he was a child.
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Interested in near-death, shared death or after-death communication? Discover The University of Heaven's blog Illuminating  https://www.theuniversityofheaven.com/blog/

Alyson G. was unable to attend the final moments of her dying father’s life, but her sister was there. According to Alyson’s sister, their father had two very lucid moments that were astounding. 
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 “First, he had been in a lot of pain and in-and-out of consciousness but at one point he sat straight up in bed, turned to my mom, took her hand and said, 'I have always loved you.' This was remarkable considering my father never talked like that and they had a long and unhappy marriage.
 
His second lucid moment--
seemingly able to leave his painful, delusional state for just a minute--was when he called to me and asked me if she could see the beautiful garden in the room. He exclaimed over-and-over, 'It’s so beautiful.' "
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What made his comments so remarkable to her sister was that she did not know if he was on his medication when he said these things because she would often find his pills lying on the floor after she would administer them. But, even if he was on the medication, his final statements were far different from any other remarks or words he had said during the days’ prior.
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Interested in near-death, shared death or after-death communication? Discover The University of Heaven's blog Illuminating  https://www.theuniversityofheaven.com/blog/

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Michael Tymn decided to drive to California to pick up his mother, Margaret, for what turned out to be their last Thanksgiving together. Perhaps he knew, on some level, that she was not long of this world and hoped to connect with her again before she passed.

“My mother, Margaret, died in my arms the day after Thanksgiving 2003. She was 87 and suffering from severe dementia, the result of a number of strokes in preceding years. It is not what she said, but the tone in which she said it, that stands out in my memory.

We were living in Depoe Bay, Oregon and my mother was in a rest home in Berkeley, California. Even though she was not mentally competent and gave no indication she recognized me or my wife, Gina, we decided to drive down to Berkeley and bring Mom back to Oregon for Thanksgiving.  We had a fairly large bedroom and were able to squeeze an extra bed into it so that we could keep an eye on Mom.

​The night before she died, Mom was jabbering away constantly.  I could not make out what she was saying, as it was all gibberish, but it sounded like she was pleading with someone or arguing with someone through most of the gibberish.  After we awoke that morning, Gina prepared Mom for the car trip back to Berkeley.  I was in the process of carrying her from the upstairs bedroom down to the ground floor, one step at a time, walking sideways, when I saw her eyes roll back in her head and her head fall back a little. She apparently gave up the ghost at that time.  

In retrospect, I think all the pleading or arguing during the night was one of two things: 
     
     1)     She was pleading with deceased loved ones to help her leave the body; or
     2)     She was so afraid of dying that she was arguing with them, telling them that he didn’t want                    to leave the body.”

Perhaps Margaret was afraid, or perhaps she was arguing for just enough time to see her son the morning before her death. Communicating with the unseen is very common in the end of life as are utterances that sound like gibberish or may be confusing to loved ones. 

One thing is for certain; Margaret is now free of her dementia, the restrictions of her body and any pain she may have felt.  For Michael and Margaret, the synchronicity of being able to see one another before Margaret’s passing, was a beautiful gift to both of them.

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The conversation Julie Geiser and her sister, Lisa, had with their mother Marlene before her death in December 2016 was quite surprising to both of them, considering prior accounts of their mother having a hard time accepting her own decline.  
                                  ***
“A few days before she died of long-term cancer, my mother who had been sleeping most of the time as she approached the end, was awake and became quite animated.
 
She said emphatically, ‘I’m admitted! I’m admitted! I’m admitted!’ a number of times.  My sister and I thought, you can be admitted to a hospital, a university, a movie, and to heaven. My sister asked her, ‘To heaven?’ And my mother said ‘Yes!’
 
Lisa asked if my grandmother was there and my mother said ‘Yes!’ Lisa also asked about other relatives by name and my mother said ‘Yes!’
 
I was on the phone for this exchange as I live in Australia and my mother and sister were in Chicago.  My sister knew this would be one of the last times we’d have together, so I was very lucky to be part of it, if even by phone. 
 
I asked my mother on the phone if she would be there for me, when it’s my turn, and she said. ‘I will! I will!’
 
Over the next half hour, she also said, ‘It’s wonderful here. I feel good. Don’t be afraid. I’m not afraid.’
 
I was so happy to know that my mother, who had not been so accepting of death was making the transition to a place that appeared to me (or to her) to be welcoming. I heard excitement in her words ‘I’m admitted!’ although speech at that point was difficult.
 
In the months prior, I’d also felt the presence of my grandmother (her mother who died in 2001) and one night I sensed her with me and heard the words, ‘Don’t worry, she won’t be alone’  and that she would be holding my mother’s hand when the time came.
 
So to know that my mother saw her own mother, that she was really there for my mother at the end to help guide her, is a true blessing for me.”
 
Between the presence of Julie’s grandmother prior to her mother’s death, and Julie’s mother proclaiming with excitement her admittance into heaven and the peace that awaits her, Julie is given a gift of relief as she knows her mother completed her spiritual transition guided by her grandmother and will one day be there for Julie when it’s her time.

Doctors, nurses, and hospice care providers all shared with me that conversations and visitations with loved ones can occur in dreams, in dream-like states or in lucid states. Medical providers also made a clear distinction between hallucinations and visions. Hallucinations are a product of medications, and do not have the flexible or transpersonal quality of visions.
 
Whereas when people had visions, they could speak about or with unseen figures in the room, such as deceased relatives, angels or other characters, but could also connect back to those in the room with them and be in present time and reality. However, people whose unusual perceptions were caused by medication are not able to step outside their perceptions and move easily between what they were perceiving and the literal reality shared with others in the room.
 
Several end-of-life researchers have written about the unique conversations with and perception of the unseen at the bedside of the dying. The figures are visible to the dying but usually not to the living and are also called “takeaway figures.” 
 
Read more about the research and the fascinating stories related to them in Dr. Melvin Morse's Parting Visions, Maggie Callahan and Patricia Kelley's Final Gifts, John Lerma’s Into the Light and finally Osis and Haraldsson’s 1977 classic What They Saw at The Hour of Death.
 
You can also discover more about nearing-death awareness and shared-death experiences at www.theuniversityofheaven.com and in its blog Illuminating.