As our group shared about why we chose to volunteer with the dying, mine came into focus. When was the pivotal point when it all came together?

It was taking care of my mother. She almost died, we did not think she would last the night and she slowly recovered. I went home to take care of her for six weeks. It was at the end of October, 2011.

When I got home to Malaysia, my mother was barely able to eat. After two weeks, she slowly recovered. One day she told me very seriously, pointing to the cement wall, “That is fake. Try it, feel it, it is fake. You can go through it to the house next door.” I looked at her and did not believe I was hearing right. “It is solid,” I told her. However, my mother was adamant, “The wall if fake, try it.” I made to punch it and showed her, – the wall is solid.

She started sharing. She was in a lot of pain. She could not stand the pain and willed her body to release her soul. She felt her soul travelling up and up where she saw Jesus and a group of dead people. Jesus said to her, “You wait here for the door to open. When the door opened, you can get through.”

She waited and waited. She waited a long long time. It took a long time before the door opened. When it opened, the dead people went through the door and she came back into her body.

While she was waiting, she kept asking my sister if the transportation had arrived. My sister shared that when I had phoned to see how she was doing.

Another time, she saw a prophet with long white beard standing by a post. “You know, it is one of those you see at car park. It goes up and down. When it goes up, a car goes through,” she described and went on, “The prophet lifted the post and a person went through. Whoever went through was dead. The prophet did it a few times and I waited. When it was my turn, the prophet did not lift the post. It was not my time, I was so relieved.”

Yet another time, she saw a coffin, an open coffin. And another prophet.
She asked the prophet who will close the coffin for her. She knew it was hers. As she got near the coffin, the prophet closed the coffin and told her it was not her time. “I was so glad it was not my time to die,” she recounted, with a shudder at the thought of dying.

One day she talked about a beautiful garden.

As I listened, I thought, “Ohmigod, all the time we thought she was dying and out of it, her spirit was traveling all over the place.” It made a deep impression on me.

She told me as she lay dying, her soul went in and out of her body. When the mother in law of my youngest sister was dying, my mother remarked, “Her soul must be going in and out.” She knew because she went through it.

I knew also from her account of the wall being fake that she had out of body experiences.

A few months later, back in the US and at work,  I was called to a shift. I entered the house, and saw the patient. He was afraid to die and was sitting on a chair. One look at him and I choked with emotion, “My God, he is actively dying. They told me he is dying, they did not tell me he is actively dying.”

I took over the shift from the caregiver and sat by him. He appeared oblivious, in a state of coma. Every now and again he would moved restlessly. I would hold his hand and he calmed down. The hospice nurse came, saw he was in a state of coma and left to talk to his family. The Champlain came and the same thing. From my mother, I knew he might be in a state of coma but he could be actively traveling all over the place. I stayed by his side the entire 12 hours shift, leaving to do some light household work when all I wanted to do was sit at his side.

He was having difficulty even swallowing water. His children would come and tried to get him to swallow some water. I told them every time he swallowed water, he suffered and was in deep distress. I told them he was not able to swallow any water. I did wet his lips.

When it was time for me to leave, I told his daughter that whenever her father got restless, I would hold his hand and he would calm down. “How beautiful,” the young woman in her early twenties exclaimed. She went to her father and held his hand. I left.

Those experiences drew me to want to work with the dying. Not just the dying, but the actively dying. To sit with them and meditate, connecting with them in spirit as they make their transition from this world to the one beyond.