AIBU to think that unusual things happen when someone is dying?

[Jelly4444]

Just to brighten up everyone's day...🤣

I'm not a big believer in religion, the paranormal or an afterlife but I do believe that unusual things happen when someone is dying.

When my grandmother was dying we saw a bright light raise up from behind her house and float in the sky for a few mins (irish countryside, halfway up a mountain!). We couldn't work out what it was. We all agreed that none of us were afraid and that we felt calmer after seeing it.

When my father was dying in hospital there was an overwhelming smell of beautiful flowers in the room. When I try to remember it now I believe it was freesias. I even gave my father a hug and a sniff to work out if the smell was from him . Only my sister and I could smell it but a nurse came in at one point and she remarked on the smell of flowers too. My father was convinced his mother in the room. He also thought that there was a young girl there too. He had a sister who died before he was born.

When my grandfather died suddenly (he was ill but we didn't expect it) we saw lights in the sky again.

When my other grandmother was dying she thought that there was crows in the room which was scary to say the least!!

I've been around other relatives when they were dying but didn't notice anything unusual. I would love to hear other people's experiences... or if you think its all nonsense!

AIBU to think that strange things happen when people are dying or is it just our minds playing tricks on us?

When my Grandmother passed, she had been quite agitated, rambling on about little men on the walls and things. The suddenly she relaxed, said "He's here", and smiled. She died about 20 minutes later.

Also, when I was young, (about 6 or 7), our neighbour from a few doors down the road (I was good friends with his step-sons) turned up one morning very upset. He kept telling my mother he was so sorry, so very sorry. But not to worry, because Leah (me) had family to look after her, and that he and his wife would do everything they could for me as well.
When asked why he was so upset, he said it was because mum was going to die. And it was so unfair; and he was so sorry.
It turned out he'd had a very strong, very clear dream that someone in the street was going to die soon. And because mother had been battling serious health issues (she had recently undergone surgery for cancer), he was convinced she was the one who was going to die.
Just over a week later HE passed away suddenly.
So he was right about someone in the street dying, just wrong about who it was.

My dad told me this story as I wasn't there. My grandmother died at home, her husband and my dad were there. She'd had a couple of heart attacks before and recovered. She had another heart attack and knew she was going. She told my dad that she didn't want to go and he held her hand. He told her to stay with him. The glass in the windows in the house were shaking as she tried to hold on. Just after she died my dad and grandad both heard her voice in the house call out my grandad's name.

I also very much believe in giving people permission to go said by an earlier poster on this thread. Years ago when I worked in a secondary school one of the younger childen had suffered a stroke in the summer holidays and died, and I was in a gathering of staff and parents for some reason, the next term, when the parents of another child came up and began talking to me, and telling me about their own boy who had died, and they mentioned that he had been very peaceful but seemed to be waiting for their permisson to go. So they gently told him 'It's all right, W......, you have our permission to go now' and he passed immediately.

And experiences not before, but afterwards: I was having an early morning cup of tea in the garden about ten years ago in the middle of June, and not thinking of anything in particular, just relaxing, when I very clearly saw a friend I'd known for 30 years appear from the fence half way up the garden, move across the lawn and the small pond to the fence on the other side, where she was lost to my view. I think this took about five seconds. Later in the morning her daughter phoned to say she wouldn't be picking me up to visit her mum at the hospice at lunch time as she'd had a phone call to say she had died. When I asked her what time this happened, she said just before 7.30 that morning. Which was the time I saw my friend.

Another time when I was working as a nurse on nights in a geriatric hospital we had a lovely lovely man who was terminally ill with cancer. He refused any pain relief but had such a peaceful aura about him everyone remarked on it. I went on holiday to the Lakes with my DH and family and we were all walking along by the edge of the water one afternoon and I felt a very strong presence and recognised it as this man whom I hadn't given any thought to since my last shift before the holiday. Several days later at breakfast and my H was sitting opposite me reading the paper. I glanced idly down the obituary columns on the back page, and this man's name was there. He'd died the same day I felt his presence.

My mum died before she knew she was going to be a great grandma, but when I was down at my daughter's helping her get settled into her new life, one day when we were out for a walk and my daughter had stopped to chat to a friend, I had a strong feeling my mother was standing just behind me, so I consciously stepped to one side so she could see the baby. Then the moment went.

Another time I was watching tv and a woman I'd never heard of before was shown on the news and as though a window opened in my mind I knew she was going to be assassinated. The window closed again and I forgot all about it, but a year later it was on the news that she had been assassinated, and I remembered. That was Benazir Bhutto, previously twice Prime Minister of Pakistan.

These happenings are weird and not looked for. Some people may say there are subconscious links, which may be true for some of them, but to me they just happen and then it's as if the window closes again and you forget...

Just want to thank everyone who has posted on this thread, I have been sitting up through the night with my grandma who is expected to pass very soon, and this has been a wonderful comfort.

LunaNorth - hope you're doing ok

RoseHeryot - thankyou for posting - it's nice to read that I am not alone in 'seeing' these 'strange' things. Unfortunately it does tend to be about death a lot - but occasionally you get a happier one.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX I've never "seen" electricity, but I don't doubt it exists!

@hulahoopqueen thinking of you.

Loads here too and I am a total atheist - so not religion based whatsoever.

My grandad died when I was 4. I told my Mum (when the phone rang with the news - totally unexpected) "Granda is dead".

Granny - I was 14 and spent the morning throwing up. My parents were at the hospital - the news wasn't great but she was expected to recover. My sister was asking me "what is wrong with you?" - I said Granny is dead. She was.

My Dad.........and FIL - both had unexpected massive heart attacks and many members of both families were awake randomly at the time of death, confirmed by docs.

A very good friend - very young, died of cancer and I was unsettled all day - when our mutual friend called to tell me I answered the phone knowing the news. We had worked together and we would never have spoken on a Sunday.

It's freaky but there's definitely a sixth sense around it.

A few people have said the one in one out thing happens and it did to us. I found out I was pregnant with DS1 the day my brother died. DS1 is temperamentally so like my brother it’s spooky. Then when my DH’s beloved Nan (who raised him) died, I had a sicky feeling so took a preg test the day of her funeral. It was quite nice being at the funeral with this lovely knowledge of a future new life inside me, knowing that eventually DS2 would bring joy to all the sad family members who were grieving that day.

My mum always told me that after her dad died for about a month, she would smell him and sense him following her around the house while she did jobs, which is just what he did in life. He would never come over and sit for a cuppa like most visitors, just tell her to carry on what she was doing and he would stand and chat and help her, like washing windows or pegging out laundry. After a month he stopped visiting. It helped her grieve.

MIL had a best friend all her life. About 3 weeks before MIL died she looked out the window and said to herself “me and Ivy will be going back to Canada on that plane”
3 weeks later Ivy was in hospital but MIL was too unwell with a cold to go visit. One morning I was about to leave while she was still in bed and had a sudden urge to check if she wanted breakfast before I went ( normally FIL did that for her) and I looked in and she had passed away suddenly on the floor. I think she meant for me to find her rather than her husband or son. We later found out Ivy had also passed away within a hour.
Before the funeral a random neighbour came to visit the house. One we didn’t know but he seemed to have known her well when they were young. He passed some tactless comments about her adopted son and then thankfully left to go home but making a huge commotion of spinning wheels in the snow. We all went out to see what he was doing and the door shut behind us and locked us out. As we stood there trying the door a couple of icicles fell off the roof and almost hit us. We believe this was MIL cross with us for letting that dipstick come in and him disrespect her.
A while later I dreamt she stood in the house and gave me a hug and I felt she was ok. Then a while later I found out I was pregnant with my youngest.

My grandad died the same day as his great granddaughters christening. The whole family was there and it was the days before mobile phones so when the hospital called to say he had passed away, they couldn't get hold of anyone. We went straight to the hospital that evening and found out there. My clock at home stopped at the same time we arrived at the hospital.
I was very close to my Spanish grandmother and before she died I had such a vivid dream of her hugging me I still felt the sensation as I woke up. It was definitely a goodbye hug and I was surprised when I got the call that afternoon to say she'd passed away.
When my dog died (sorry!) I was abroad. I woke up that day feeling not quite myself, felt I needed time alone and later had a really strong urge to phone home. I called home and was told that the dog had been put down earlier that day.

I was very young when my maternal grandfather died. He had throat cancer but I didn't know this, only being four or five at the time.

About an hour before my dm got the call to say he had passed away, I had apparently come downstairs because I had been having a conversation with him in my bedroom and he had told me he would look out for me and that his sore throat had gone away.

I knew something awful was going to happen a good few weeks before my paternal grandfather died. Just had a sense of foreboding, like the feeling when you know you are in deep trouble but the shit hadn't quite hit the fan yet. Horrible sense of dread when he died and I got a sort of macabre 'ah ha, that's what it was then'. It was horrible (though it sort of lessen the shock as I was expecting bad news).

I also knew before I was told that my cat had died. I was on the way home from college and got a feeling that my mum wasn't going to be in a good mood when I got home but had no idea why. Not in a good mood was the understatement of the year. We were both devastating even though she was just a cat she was one of the special ones. I haven't got another one after her as I can't cope with it dying again.

Funny things happen around birth too. My dm does calligraphy and did the wedding album of a family friend. At the back she she put a nest with two eggs in it after she got "a flash". Two years later they had twins.

I also apparently told her my name in a dream before I was born and I knew ds was going to be a boy since the moment I knew that I was pregnant.

MIL died earlier this year (covid - care home). She'd been ill, refusing food and drink, despite our best efforts through her window for a week or so.

Occasionally, she'd briefly rally and try to pass the DDs a sweet through the window, mostly she slept. BIL was allowed in with PPE as according to the care home he was, to put it bluntly, expendable (no dependants- and no I wasn't very happy about that). Anyway, the night before she died, BIL text me to say he was staying, one of the staff had said her breathing had changed and it wouldn't be long. She died in the early hours.

DH went for an early morning bike ride to clear his head, around 6am. He stopped in the garden of her old house (now BILs) and it was like she'd come home. She was there. He felt her presence and was comforted by it. It was a lovely moment after an awful fortnight.

@RoseHeryot my mum has had similar "windows" to you. Twice she's had an awful feeling that perfectly normal, healthy people would die shortly, and they did, within a week. Hideous accidents (she was nowhere near though).

The year before my maternal grandfather died, he had a huge heart attack in Spain. I came home from school & asked if everyone was ok- I had a feeling. Mum said, yes, she was sure they all were but then my aunt rang, hours after it had happened to tell us & summon mum. We found out later that my grandmother hadn't wanted my mother called at all and certainly not for her to travel to be with grandad. My mother was incredibly close to him and grandma was jealous. There was also trouble between my GPs and my aunt and my mum and my aunt at the time (although my aunt would never cut my mum off from that sort of news). Grandad was resuscitated and effectively brought back to life by the ambulance crew. I don't think he wanted to die then but certainly not without seeing my mother one last time. So I believe he fought to hang on and sent a message via me, just in case.

He ultimately lived for another year and moved back to the UK- to live near my mother - before he died. He also told mum how proud of her he was and how much he loved her the last time he saw her. He'd had a lovely last few days, a little more energy and so full of joy at the things around him.
Mum reckoned he knew.

I was afraid to open this thread. DM died in April from covid19 she was always child like and often mentioned throughout the years she was terrified of death, she died alone in isolation.
I always imagined I'd be there at the end holding her hand.
I hope there is something more that she had comfort.

A dove landed on our roof over the last couple of days that my Grandad was in hospital. It hung around for a few days, then left just after he died. With my Nan we saw a white horse not far from us one night and a horse was drawn on the window in condensation the next morning. My Ex told me in a dream that he loved me in a very “him” way (nicknames etc) a couple of months after he died. All comforting stuff.

About a week and a half before my mum passed, my son came downstairs and said he heard a banshee. I put it down to him reading halloween stories. Five minutes later we got a call from my brother saying the doctors said there's nothing more that they can do for my mum and we should come pay our last respects.

When mum went into hospital there was a purple jacarandah tree outside the window in full bloom. The day she died there were just a few straggling blooms left on the tree. When I went in the next morning to pick up her things it was completely bare.

I saw my mum die. I was there with my dad. I had originally planned to go hone but the nurse took me aside and said it's probably going to be that night. We played her favourite Irish/Scottish songs . It was very peaceful - she was mostly unconscious and she just took five deep breaths and passed away in the early hours of the morning.

Two weeks after she passed my son came out of school and said he saw her. I asked if she was transparent, scary etc. He looked at me frankly and said "No, she was just standing in the corner of the canteen (tuckshop) in her normal clothes smiling at me". What he didn't know is that she used to work in the canteen once a week when I was in infants and she often used to say she loved doing that.

Yes! As my mother was taking her last breath at home, the birds outside had stopped chirping and began again when she had passed. Probably a coincidence but so surreal and comforting at the the same time because she always fed the birds in her garden. I keep thinking about it and thinking was it that my mind went blank but the priest was there giving the last rites and I could hear him perfectly.

I have been with my 4 grandparents in the hours leading up to their deaths, we are a big family and knew in advance they were dying and every single one of them waited until there was nobody or only 1 or 2 people with them when they died, as if they wanted to slip away quietly with no fuss.

Both my nana's were basically unconscious before they passed but both grandfathers were calling for their mammy and held out their hands at various times.

I’ve often wondered whether the dying person gets a sixth sense that they are going to die that day. Not so much in a case where they have been ill, but when you hear of people dying suddenly and unexpectedly?

My mum dropped dead, completely out of the blue one afternoon after going upstairs to get ready to go out for lunch. No warning signs and no history of illness. She was very religious and we jokingly used to call her a white witch because she always seemed to know when something was about to happen, like one time she had an odd feeling about a day out and then we got into a car accident. Everyone was ok but she said she knew we should have stayed at home that day. Or she’d say she had just been thinking about a person and then that person would either phone up or ring the doorbell, that kind of thing. I often wonder whether she’d had a feeling the day she died that something was going to happen. Obviously it would have been weird if she’d said to my dad, “I’ve got a strange feeling I’m going to die today”, but I wonder in those last few seconds before she fell to the floor if she thought, “I knew it!”.

It’s been over 20 years now since she passed and I still see robins in the garden and find white feathers, especially when I’m having a bad day. It always brings me comfort. Also, on the day she died I was about 100 miles away and can remember constantly seeing single magpies (one for sorrow) almost every time I drove down a different road (so not the same one I saw each time!). I know lots of people think it’s woo and unexplainable, but judging by the amount of similar experiences on this thread with magpies, feathers and robins, I definitely believe it’s more than just a coincidence.

💐 and hugs to all those out there grieving. It’s pants, and doesn’t necessarily get easier over time, you just learn to cope in different ways 😢.

Not when anyone was dying, but my DS had an imaginary friend. He often talked about him and his funny clothes, where he worked, how he died etc. We went to a local museum and my son pointed to a picture "That's Henry" the description of this victorian boy fitted exactly my DSs description.

I’m so sorry for your loss @Emeraldshamrock. It must have made it so much more distressing for you not to be able to be with her .

Emerald, my dad died in May from covid : he was 98.
I know exactly how your feeling and I feel guilty I wasn't with him when passed. he was in a care home and been transferred to hospital , so I couldn't go up there.
I believe his at peace with my mum.
I know how hard it is.
X

@Imissmoominmama Thank you.
@The80sweregreat indeed you almost feel cheated such a sad way to go. Sorry for your loss
I console myself with she was safe in hospital. Some lose family in much harsher circumstances.