# Episode 307: The Magic of Hospice & the Afterlife Welcoming Committee

An episode of [The Best of Coast to Coast AM](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1206175991), 8 Sep 2026, 51 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/eac88146-dcc8-48aa-b5e9-ae2d0173cb0a/0bd1512a-cfef-4720-82f7-b4bf00ee4a31/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=b95f0c24-c199-4939-b52c-ae2b00350f65

Join Sandra as she explores the amazing benefits of Hospice care, sharing insights from end-of-life medical professionals on deathbed visions, terminal lucidity, and the beautiful truth that no one transitions alone. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: And you're here.
[0:01] Speaker 2: Thanks for choosing the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
[0:04] Speaker 2: Paranormal Podcast Network. Your quest for podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural,
[0:09] Speaker 2: and the unexplained ends here. We invite you to enjoy
[0:12] Speaker 2: all our shows we have on this network. And right now,
[0:15] Speaker 2: let's start with Shades of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain.
[0:21] Speaker 1: Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
[0:25] Speaker 1: opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions only.
[0:29] Speaker 1: And do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast to
[0:34] Speaker 1: Coast AM, employees of Premier Networks, or their sponsors and associates.
[0:40] Speaker 1: We would like to encourage you to do your own
[0:42] Speaker 1: research and discover the subject matter for yourself. Hi, I'm
[0:51] Speaker 1: Sandra Champlain. For over 25 years, I've been on a
[0:55] Speaker 1: journey to prove the existence of life after death. On
[1:00] Speaker 1: each episode, we'll discuss the reasons we now know that
[1:04] Speaker 1: our loved ones have survived physical death, and so will we.
[1:09] Speaker 1: Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. In the past two weeks,
[1:12] Speaker 1: there have been several deaths in the lives of people
[1:15] Speaker 1: very close to me. It has been an emotional time
[1:19] Speaker 1: for sure. One of the most important and wonderful things
[1:22] Speaker 1: these transitions had in common is that in every single
[1:26] Speaker 1: one of them, they were cared for by hospice. About
[1:30] Speaker 1: a week ago, our fellow listener named Shannon wrote to me.
[1:33] Speaker 1: She shared that her medication was no longer controlling her
[1:36] Speaker 1: cancer and that she was going under hospice care. Shannon
[1:40] Speaker 1: asked if I could recommend some of my top episodes
[1:44] Speaker 1: to comfort someone who is preparing to pass and entering
[1:47] Speaker 1: into spirit. I passed along a special list to her
[1:51] Speaker 1: and she spent her final days listening to those words.
[1:55] Speaker 1: I found out last night that Shannon has passed. Today,
[1:59] Speaker 1: I want to dedicate this episode to Shannon, the others
[2:02] Speaker 1: who made their transition, and also to your loved ones,
[2:07] Speaker 1: as I know there's a pretty good chance you're listening
[2:09] Speaker 1: today to gain a bit of comfort for the grief
[2:12] Speaker 1: you are feeling. We're going to discover the incredible world
[2:16] Speaker 1: of hospice. I call the people who do this work
[2:19] Speaker 1: earth angels, and you'll hear some very profound words directly
[2:24] Speaker 1: from hospice workers about the miracles they witness every single day.
[2:30] Speaker 1: But first, I want to share the exact list of
[2:32] Speaker 1: six episodes that I gave to Shannon. If you or
[2:36] Speaker 1: someone you love is preparing for their journey home, I
[2:40] Speaker 1: truly believe these will bring you peace. If you have
[2:44] Speaker 1: a pen handy, write down these numbers. 122, 139, 224, 275, 287,
[2:47] Speaker 1: and 294. Episode 122 is Death is But a Dream.
[2:49] Speaker 1: It features the incredible research of hospice doctor Christopher Kerr.
[2:53] Speaker 1: It shows how the dying process isn't just a physical decline.
[3:11] Speaker 1: But it's a time of profound emotional healing, beautiful, highly
[3:15] Speaker 1: lucid reunions with your deceased loved ones. Episode 139, here
[3:21] Speaker 1: I speak with hospice physician, Dr. Karen Wyatt. She describes
[3:25] Speaker 1: the dying process as the physical body gently dissolving so
[3:29] Speaker 1: that the soul can be predominant. Episode 224, death is
[3:35] Speaker 1: as easy as walking through a door. The triumphant near-death
[3:38] Speaker 1: experience of Dr. Mary Helen Hensley. Her story takes all
[3:43] Speaker 1: the fear and heaviness out of the transition. Episode 275
[3:48] Speaker 1: is the Heavenly Welcoming Committee. Who will be there to
[3:52] Speaker 1: greet you? It explains the life review, not as a
[3:56] Speaker 1: terrifying judgment, but as an experience guided by absolute love.
[4:01] Speaker 1: Episode 287, End of Life Visions and Visitors. With insights
[4:07] Speaker 1: from nurse Julie McFadden and Dr. Martha Jo Atkins, it
[4:11] Speaker 1: removes the anxiety around the body's natural shutdown and proves
[4:15] Speaker 1: that deathbed visions of angels and relatives and pets are
[4:19] Speaker 1: undeniably real and deeply peaceful. And then episode 294, Arriving
[4:26] Speaker 1: in Heaven and Overcoming Earthly Skepticism. what those very first
[4:32] Speaker 1: moments of crossing the veil actually feel like, that the
[4:35] Speaker 1: spirit world adapts to whatever brings you the most peace,
[4:40] Speaker 1: instantly removing all physical pain, illness, and earthly worries. I
[4:46] Speaker 1: hope you find comfort in these episodes. I know it's
[4:49] Speaker 1: a difficult topic to talk about, but it's real for
[4:52] Speaker 1: all of us at some point in our lives. So
[4:55] Speaker 1: now let's step into the magic of hospice care. Before
[5:01] Speaker 1: we can truly understand the spiritual magic of hospice, we
[5:05] Speaker 1: need to understand what hospice actually is. And to do that,
[5:10] Speaker 1: I want to be completely honest and vulnerable with you.
[5:14] Speaker 1: You see, my own father, John, passed away back in 2010.
[5:19] Speaker 1: He was in palliative care in the hospital, not hospice.
[5:25] Speaker 1: Dad was sedated, but he was in terrible pain. We,
[5:29] Speaker 1: his adult kids, had to sit there and watch him
[5:32] Speaker 1: die in misery. We begged the doctors and nurses to
[5:36] Speaker 1: turn up his pain medication just to give him some relief,
[5:39] Speaker 1: but we were told that legally they could not do
[5:42] Speaker 1: it because of the fear of malpractice lawsuits. My brother
[5:46] Speaker 1: was angry and said, we are kinder to our animals
[5:51] Speaker 1: than we are to people. For a long time, I
[5:54] Speaker 1: wondered if hospice would have been different. I wondered if
[5:57] Speaker 1: there could have been another choice or if that kind
[6:00] Speaker 1: of suffering was an inevitable part of the dying process.
[6:04] Speaker 1: What I have learned since then is that there is
[6:07] Speaker 1: a massive fundamental difference between palliative care and hospice care.
[6:14] Speaker 1: In palliative care, a patient is still legally and medically
[6:19] Speaker 1: under the umbrella of someone seeking treatment. That means hospitals
[6:25] Speaker 1: and nurses and doctors are bound by strict regulations and
[6:29] Speaker 1: liabilities regarding pain medication. But hospice is an entirely different philosophy.
[6:37] Speaker 1: When a patient enters hospice, the goal shifts completely from
[6:43] Speaker 1: curing the disease and 100% of the focus goes to
[6:48] Speaker 1: the patient's comfort. They are legally protected and mandated to
[6:53] Speaker 1: prioritize the elimination of pain above all else. To help
[6:59] Speaker 1: us truly understand this difference, I want you to hear
[7:03] Speaker 1: directly from hospice nurse Julie McFadden. Nurse Julie has been
[7:08] Speaker 1: a hospice nurse for years. Her educational videos on YouTube
[7:12] Speaker 1: have been viewed by millions, and she explains exactly how
[7:17] Speaker 1: these two programs work.
[7:20] Speaker 3: So first, let me explain hospice. So since hospice is
[7:23] Speaker 3: federally funded, every hospice company should basically be acting the same.
[7:28] Speaker 3: Medicare is our boss. Medicare says what we can do,
[7:31] Speaker 3: what we can't do. So in general, every hospice company
[7:35] Speaker 3: across the nation should be functioning the same. In order
[7:38] Speaker 3: for people to come on to hospice, there are some guidelines.
[7:41] Speaker 3: It depends on why you're coming on to hospice. So
[7:45] Speaker 3: depending on what disease you are coming on to hospice for.
[7:48] Speaker 3: But in general, you have to have less than six
[7:51] Speaker 3: months to live.
[7:52] Speaker 1: Who says that?
[7:53] Speaker 3: Usually your doctor. But also you, if you have a
[7:57] Speaker 3: terminal illness, can call a hospice company on your own
[8:01] Speaker 3: and get an evaluation on your own if you choose.
[8:04] Speaker 1: Hospice isn't necessarily a physical place that you have to
[8:08] Speaker 1: go to. It is a service that can come to
[8:12] Speaker 1: you and it is designed to take the physical and
[8:16] Speaker 1: financial burden off the family so that they can just
[8:20] Speaker 1: focus on loving their person more.
[8:23] Speaker 3: So one thing that hospice does provide is DME, which
[8:27] Speaker 3: is durable medical equipment. It means a hospital bed, a
[8:31] Speaker 3: bedside commode, a wheelchair, a walker, all types of things.
[8:35] Speaker 3: It's all free and it's all provided by Medicare. Now,
[8:38] Speaker 3: because Medicare is paying for it again, we have to
[8:41] Speaker 3: listen to what Medicare says. We can and cannot order you.
[8:43] Speaker 3: But in general, you can get medical equipment in your
[8:47] Speaker 3: home for free from hospice. Another thing we supply is supplies.
[8:52] Speaker 3: So bed pads, briefs, gloves, no rinse soaps. And again,
[8:58] Speaker 3: this is Medicare driven. So Medicare is our boss. So
[9:02] Speaker 3: there's some red tape to get through. But in general,
[9:04] Speaker 3: we can supply you with a lot of things for free. Also,
[9:07] Speaker 3: we can get the medications delivered to the home. So
[9:11] Speaker 3: you or your family member no longer has to go
[9:13] Speaker 3: to the pharmacy and get those medications.
[9:16] Speaker 1: Hospital beds, medications, supplies, all brought directly into your living room.
[9:23] Speaker 1: But who is actually doing this caretaking? I think this
[9:26] Speaker 1: is where a lot of fear comes in. Families are
[9:29] Speaker 1: terrified of doing it wrong themselves or being left alone
[9:33] Speaker 1: in the middle of the night in case of a crisis.
[9:35] Speaker 1: Nurse Julie explains exactly who makes up your hospice team.
[9:40] Speaker 3: So hospice is mostly in people's homes. You can go
[9:45] Speaker 3: to hospice facilities in certain states, but also most hospices
[9:49] Speaker 3: are in your home. And most of the work falls
[9:53] Speaker 3: on the family, which I think is a huge misconception.
[9:55] Speaker 3: Most people don't know that. So if you are going
[9:58] Speaker 3: to have hospice in your home, your family will be
[10:01] Speaker 3: the ones caring for you most of the time. What
[10:04] Speaker 3: hospice does provide is a team of people to come
[10:07] Speaker 3: into your home intermittently when you need them. So that's
[10:10] Speaker 3: a doctor, a nurse, a social worker, a home health aide,
[10:14] Speaker 3: someone to bathe you and get you changed and dressed,
[10:18] Speaker 3: and a chaplain or like a spiritual counselor, if you choose.
[10:23] Speaker 3: We also provide you with a 24-hour number where a
[10:26] Speaker 3: nurse can come out to your house, even if it's
[10:28] Speaker 3: two in the morning or whatever time, Christmas day, whatever.
[10:31] Speaker 1: You see, you are never alone. You have a 24-hour
[10:34] Speaker 1: lifeline Now, what about palliative care? This is the care
[10:39] Speaker 1: my dad received in that hospital. Why is it different?
[10:43] Speaker 1: And when is it the right choice?
[10:45] Speaker 3: Someone on palliative care does probably have something terminal.
[10:50] Speaker 1: So whether it's a.
[10:52] Speaker 3: Year, two years, we don't know. But there's usually some
[10:55] Speaker 3: kind of terminal or chronic illness that causes tons of symptoms.
[11:01] Speaker 3: They either have a lot of symptoms because of the
[11:03] Speaker 3: disease or they have a lot of symptoms because of
[11:05] Speaker 3: the treatment of the disease. So they use palliative care
[11:09] Speaker 3: to have better symptom management. Anyone with a terminal or
[11:14] Speaker 3: chronic illness knows that you have symptoms and you kind
[11:17] Speaker 3: of go in and out of the ER, in and
[11:19] Speaker 3: out of urgent care. You have exacerbations where you're really
[11:22] Speaker 3: sick for weeks and then kind of fine for weeks.
[11:25] Speaker 3: And palliative care's whole purpose is is to take your
[11:29] Speaker 3: disease that's up and down and make it more steady.
[11:33] Speaker 3: So the big difference between hospice and palliative care in
[11:36] Speaker 3: a general way is that hospice is end of life
[11:40] Speaker 3: focused or we're trying to help you live out the
[11:43] Speaker 3: rest of your life and die a peaceful death. Palliative
[11:46] Speaker 3: care is symptom management. We want to help you live
[11:50] Speaker 3: with this disease that you are having symptoms from or
[11:53] Speaker 3: from the treatment you're getting for this disease. We are
[11:56] Speaker 3: trying to help manage those symptoms so you can live
[12:00] Speaker 3: a great life while also having this disease.
[12:03] Speaker 1: Palliative care means you are still actively fighting the disease,
[12:08] Speaker 1: still receiving treatments, and therefore still navigating the boundaries of
[12:13] Speaker 1: standard hospital care. Hospice is the profound surrender to comfort.
[12:19] Speaker 1: It is the medical system giving you permission to stop fighting,
[12:23] Speaker 1: to stop the painful treatments, and let your team focus
[12:27] Speaker 1: entirely on giving you a peaceful, pain-free transition. Hospice workers,
[12:34] Speaker 1: my friends, are some of the most delightful, enthusiastic people around.
[12:40] Speaker 1: And once the physical body is finally made comfortable, Something
[12:44] Speaker 1: truly extraordinary begins to happen within the mind and the soul.
[12:49] Speaker 1: When we come back from our break, we're going to
[12:51] Speaker 1: explore the mysterious and incredibly active spiritual life of the dying.
[12:57] Speaker 1: We'll hear about terminal lucidity, deathbed visions, and the invisible
[13:01] Speaker 1: escorts who walk us all home. We'll be right back.
[13:05] Speaker 1: You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife. on the iHeartRadio
[13:10] Speaker 1: and Coast to Coast.
[13:11] Speaker 4: AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
[13:33] Speaker 1: Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain.
[13:37] Speaker 1: So what is happening in the minds of our loved
[13:40] Speaker 1: ones as the veil begins to thin and what happens
[13:43] Speaker 1: when their bodies begin to truly shut down and they
[13:46] Speaker 1: stop responding to us all together? I want to introduce
[13:49] Speaker 1: you to Dr. Michael Barbato. He is a palliative care
[13:53] Speaker 1: physician who has spent decades sitting at the bedside of
[13:56] Speaker 1: the dying.
[13:57] Speaker 5: Dr.
[13:58] Speaker 1: Barbato has discovered that our loved ones are having profound,
[14:03] Speaker 1: vivid experiences that help them process their lives and find
[14:07] Speaker 1: the courage to let go and transition.
[14:11] Speaker 5: Maria was an Italian matriarch. She was the grandmother to
[14:16] Speaker 5: many grandchildren, numerous great-grandchildren, and she had four or five
[14:22] Speaker 5: living children. She was admitted to hospital. She had very
[14:27] Speaker 5: late stage cancer, but the family had cared for her
[14:30] Speaker 5: at home beautifully. But it got to a point that
[14:33] Speaker 5: they just weren't able to manage, so she came into hospital.
[14:36] Speaker 5: This woman couldn't speak a word of English. The family
[14:40] Speaker 5: stressed to me in private when she came in that
[14:43] Speaker 5: they knew her mother had cancer, but they hadn't told
[14:47] Speaker 5: her and insisted no one else tell her, and certainly
[14:52] Speaker 5: not to use the word dying. Not that she would
[14:54] Speaker 5: have understood it in English, but the family just never
[14:58] Speaker 5: talked about death and dying. This woman laid in bed,
[15:01] Speaker 5: as depressed as anyone could be. And every day the
[15:05] Speaker 5: family would come in and be jolly, encouraging her to eat.
[15:09] Speaker 5: And she ate very little and didn't join in the
[15:12] Speaker 5: banter that was going on. After a couple of days,
[15:15] Speaker 5: and nothing had changed, one day the family came out
[15:20] Speaker 5: and virtually grabbed me by the collar and said, you
[15:23] Speaker 5: must come and see my mother because she wants to
[15:25] Speaker 5: leave hospital. And she obviously can't because she's too sick
[15:29] Speaker 5: and she's dying. And I wondered, What's going on to
[15:32] Speaker 5: make them say this? So I went in there and
[15:34] Speaker 5: this woman who had virtually spent all of her time
[15:37] Speaker 5: laying prone in bed was sitting on the edge of
[15:40] Speaker 5: the bed gesticulating in Italian, just totally in total contrast
[15:47] Speaker 5: to the woman I'd seen in the previous several days.
[15:51] Speaker 5: So I said to the daughter, what is she saying?
[15:55] Speaker 5: And this is absolutely verbatim. My boat has come. My
[16:00] Speaker 5: bags are packed. I'm going on a beautiful journey, but
[16:05] Speaker 5: none of you can come with me. They again said, See,
[16:09] Speaker 5: I told you she wants to leave hospital. You must
[16:11] Speaker 5: give her an injection. I took the family outside and said,
[16:16] Speaker 5: She knows she's dying. You may not have told her,
[16:18] Speaker 5: but she knows. But what she wants most of all,
[16:23] Speaker 5: as does any person who's going on a long holiday,
[16:27] Speaker 5: is to say goodbye. and to be hugged and kissed.
[16:30] Speaker 5: From that moment on, they talked about death and dying.
[16:34] Speaker 5: They talked about how much she was loved, what a
[16:37] Speaker 5: wonderful person she'd been for all of them as children,
[16:40] Speaker 5: for the grandchildren, and so on. She died about two
[16:43] Speaker 5: days later. The family came in to thank us with,
[16:47] Speaker 5: in typical Italian fashion, food and flowers, and the thing
[16:51] Speaker 5: they said, we so valued those last two days. Thank
[16:57] Speaker 5: you for letting us know. Sadly, this type of language,
[17:01] Speaker 5: up until recently, was treated with an injection. It was
[17:05] Speaker 5: seen as delirium. We now know this was a dream
[17:11] Speaker 5: that was so powerful, it became a vision. In other words,
[17:14] Speaker 5: it virtually woke her up from her depressed state, and
[17:18] Speaker 5: she was on the bed because she could see, presumably,
[17:21] Speaker 5: a boat.
[17:22] Speaker 1: The metaphor of a boat or a train is so
[17:25] Speaker 1: incredibly common at the end of life. But sometimes the
[17:29] Speaker 1: comfort doesn't come from a vehicle. It comes from a companion.
[17:34] Speaker 5: Trent was a young boy, heavy drinker, captain of his
[17:37] Speaker 5: football team, had a full room of footy blokes. One
[17:40] Speaker 5: day his dad visited him in the afternoon. The room
[17:43] Speaker 5: was full of blokes, but they were all sitting on
[17:45] Speaker 5: a chair, but there was one empty chair. The dad thought,
[17:49] Speaker 5: I'll go and sit on this chair. As he was
[17:51] Speaker 5: about to sit down, his son, who was dying, said, Dad,
[17:55] Speaker 5: don't sit there. Dad said, why? He said, Trent's sitting there.
[18:00] Speaker 5: If you were the relative and someone you knew and
[18:03] Speaker 5: loved said that to you, you would probably do the
[18:05] Speaker 5: next thing what the father did. He chased me up
[18:08] Speaker 5: and said, you're giving him too much morphine. You need
[18:11] Speaker 5: to cut the dose down. And he told me what happened.
[18:14] Speaker 5: And I said, tell me about Trent. Don't remember the
[18:17] Speaker 5: exact words, but the message was Trent's been here all
[18:20] Speaker 5: this time and he's showing me the way out. The
[18:24] Speaker 5: family found it very hard to deal with it, but eventually,
[18:28] Speaker 5: it gave them some sense of relief that how well
[18:32] Speaker 5: he was coping with it. And he was coping with
[18:35] Speaker 5: it well because of this person who he didn't know,
[18:39] Speaker 5: but called Trent, had come to help him through this
[18:42] Speaker 5: final phase.
[18:44] Speaker 1: A spirit guide sitting right there in the empty chair
[18:48] Speaker 1: to show him the way out. These stories give me goosebumps.
[18:52] Speaker 1: But what happens if someone has a troubled past or
[18:55] Speaker 1: carries the heavy weight of trauma? Are their visions still peaceful?
[19:00] Speaker 1: This is where the true magic of the spirit world
[19:02] Speaker 1: comes in. It provides the exact healing the soul needs
[19:06] Speaker 1: to be able to let go. Listen to this remarkable
[19:09] Speaker 1: story of a Vietnam veteran whose terrifying nightmares transformed into
[19:14] Speaker 1: a welcoming committee.
[19:17] Speaker 5: He was a Vietnam vet, was having nightmares, and he
[19:21] Speaker 5: was the only person in his group of 12 soldiers
[19:26] Speaker 5: who survived the war. All his mates died in battle.
[19:30] Speaker 5: He was nearing death and he had a tracheostomy. Couldn't talk,
[19:34] Speaker 5: but he would write. I realized how important dreams are.
[19:38] Speaker 5: So apart from checking bowels and breathing and all these
[19:41] Speaker 5: other things, I would always finish, have you had any dreams?
[19:45] Speaker 5: And if so, do you want to share them? And
[19:47] Speaker 5: he said he's having recurrent nightmares. He's seeing his buddies
[19:52] Speaker 5: and he's dreading having to face them and explain how
[19:57] Speaker 5: he alone survived. And he was petrified of dying, not
[20:01] Speaker 5: because of death itself, but what this dream was telling him.
[20:06] Speaker 5: And that went on for a couple of days. And
[20:08] Speaker 5: he was having this nightmare every night. And every morning,
[20:11] Speaker 5: he was even more distressed about it. After about four mornings,
[20:15] Speaker 5: it's totally different. He was, if anything, you would say, happy.
[20:19] Speaker 5: And I said, what's happened? He said, I now know
[20:23] Speaker 5: what it's all about. They're waiting to welcome me back.
[20:28] Speaker 1: They're waiting to welcome me back. Once the soul finds
[20:32] Speaker 1: that kind of profound peace and resolution, the physical body
[20:37] Speaker 1: can finally begin its final shutdown. It is completely natural
[20:42] Speaker 1: to panic when our loved one slips into what seems
[20:45] Speaker 1: like a coma. Their eyes are closed, they aren't moving,
[20:49] Speaker 1: and they aren't speaking. It is so easy to assume
[20:53] Speaker 1: that they've already left us or that they're trapped in
[20:57] Speaker 1: a dark void, but Dr. Barbato reveals that they are
[21:01] Speaker 1: still very much with us.
[21:04] Speaker 5: The first thing I say, they're not unconscious. They are unresponsive.
[21:10] Speaker 5: They're not moving. They're not opening their eyes, not talking
[21:14] Speaker 5: most of the time. But for the early phase of
[21:18] Speaker 5: this period, they have a varying degree of awareness of
[21:23] Speaker 5: what's going on around them and with them. They can
[21:27] Speaker 5: experience pain. They can hear. So they could hear us talking.
[21:31] Speaker 5: They can feel what the nurses are doing, what the
[21:34] Speaker 5: doctors are saying, what the doctors are doing. And for
[21:36] Speaker 5: that reason, when we're with people who are unconscious, you
[21:40] Speaker 5: treat them as if they're there, they can hear, they
[21:43] Speaker 5: may not see. So we never talk about them. We
[21:46] Speaker 5: talk to them and we tell them what we're doing
[21:49] Speaker 5: and we encourage family to talk to them, not harangue
[21:53] Speaker 5: them constantly, but just to let them know you're here
[21:57] Speaker 5: and to validate them how important they've been in their life.
[22:00] Speaker 1: To prove just how aware they are, Dr. Barbato actually
[22:04] Speaker 1: conducted a study using a special brain monitor, the kind
[22:09] Speaker 1: usually used by anesthesiologists, to measure how deeply asleep a
[22:14] Speaker 1: patient is before surgery. A score of 100 means you
[22:18] Speaker 1: are wide awake, and a score of 50 means you
[22:21] Speaker 1: are in a deep sleep. He connected this monitor to
[22:24] Speaker 1: a young patient who was entirely unresponsive. Listen to what
[22:29] Speaker 1: happened next.
[22:30] Speaker 5: This young boy, he was about 30, was dying of
[22:33] Speaker 5: HIV and he was totally unresponsive. No sooner had I
[22:40] Speaker 5: connected the machine that the bedside phone rang. Now, normally
[22:45] Speaker 5: you would say, bugger it, you know, it's disturbed him.
[22:48] Speaker 5: But this was a blessing in disguise because what happened,
[22:52] Speaker 5: the machine, which was 50, went up to about 90.
[22:56] Speaker 5: So something happened. He either heard it Whether he recognized
[23:00] Speaker 5: it as the phone ringing, I don't know, but the
[23:03] Speaker 5: sound they can hear.
[23:06] Speaker 1: A jump from 50 to 90 on the brain monitor
[23:10] Speaker 1: just from the sound of a phone ringing. My friend,
[23:13] Speaker 1: this changes everything about how we should behave when we
[23:17] Speaker 1: are sitting in a hospice room. Their soul and their
[23:21] Speaker 1: senses are still vibrating and taking in the energy of
[23:25] Speaker 1: the room. Tell them who you are. Talk to them,
[23:29] Speaker 1: not about them. Tell them what a wonderful mother, father,
[23:34] Speaker 1: or friend they've been. They all need to hear those
[23:37] Speaker 1: words of love to find the freedom to let go.
[23:40] Speaker 1: And you know, even for the living, it's important to
[23:44] Speaker 1: speak those words. The absolute most incredible piece of Dr.
[23:48] Speaker 1: Barbato's research happens at the exact moment the soul leaves
[23:53] Speaker 1: the physical body. We often think of death as a
[23:57] Speaker 1: quiet fading out like a slow dimming of the light.
[24:01] Speaker 1: But when Dr. Barbato looked at the monitors measuring the
[24:04] Speaker 1: awareness of these dying patients, he didn't see a slow
[24:08] Speaker 1: fade into nothingness. He saw an explosion of energy right
[24:13] Speaker 1: at the finish line.
[24:14] Speaker 5: The last thing I'm going to tell you about is
[24:17] Speaker 5: just the mystery moment of death. Before death, there's this
[24:22] Speaker 5: sudden spike. And the big question is, what is that?
[24:27] Speaker 5: And let me say, throughout the world, no one is
[24:29] Speaker 5: prepared to come out and say, neuroscientists say it could
[24:34] Speaker 5: be just the dying brain. Other people, myself included, can
[24:38] Speaker 5: say it's possibly a deathbed vision. And there's now more
[24:43] Speaker 5: evidence coming out to favour the latter, but it explains
[24:47] Speaker 5: to me how that lady that I saw sat up,
[24:51] Speaker 5: was looking at something, laid back down, and immediately died.
[24:55] Speaker 1: When that monitor spikes, that is the moment the veil
[25:00] Speaker 1: lifts completely. That is the moment the angels and the
[25:04] Speaker 1: beloved family members step into the room to take our
[25:08] Speaker 1: loved ones by the hand. Death is not a fading
[25:11] Speaker 1: away into the dark. It is a brilliant, beautiful burst
[25:16] Speaker 1: of energy and light. When we come back from the break,
[25:19] Speaker 1: we're going to dive even deeper into those final visions.
[25:23] Speaker 1: we're going to explore the incredible tucking in process and
[25:27] Speaker 1: learn how to translate the metaphors our loved ones use
[25:32] Speaker 1: when they are preparing for their heavenly travel. We'll be
[25:36] Speaker 1: right back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on
[25:40] Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
[26:05] Speaker 1: Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain.
[26:09] Speaker 1: We just learned from Dr. Michael Barbato about the incredible
[26:13] Speaker 1: awareness our loved ones possess, even when they appear completely unresponsive.
[26:19] Speaker 1: But what is happening to their soul and their consciousness
[26:23] Speaker 1: in the weeks and days leading up to that final stage?
[26:27] Speaker 1: Often family members become distressed because their dying loved one
[26:32] Speaker 1: may seem confused and They might say things that don't
[26:35] Speaker 1: make logical sense or they might seem to withdraw, closing
[26:39] Speaker 1: their eyes and ignoring the room. It is easy to
[26:43] Speaker 1: panic and think the illness has taken over their mind.
[26:47] Speaker 1: To help us understand what is truly going on, I
[26:50] Speaker 1: want you to hear from Dr. Martha Jo Atkins. She
[26:53] Speaker 1: is a licensed end-of-life counselor and a deaf doula who
[26:57] Speaker 1: has sat at the bed for more than a thousand transitions.
[27:01] Speaker 2: Dr.
[27:01] Speaker 1: Atkins has realized that the changing behaviors of the dying
[27:06] Speaker 1: are not signs of a broken brain, but rather the
[27:09] Speaker 1: soul doing profound, sacred work. She describes the beginning of
[27:14] Speaker 1: this spiritual separation as a process she calls tucking in.
[27:19] Speaker 6: I know people who have a cancer diagnosis and they're
[27:24] Speaker 6: in a place of it's treatable, curable, and then it's
[27:27] Speaker 6: just treatable, and then it's not treatable, not curable anymore.
[27:31] Speaker 6: And as they're in that process, their dreams change, their
[27:36] Speaker 6: movement about their day changes, and they begin to pull in.
[27:40] Speaker 6: And as someone is moving more and more into their
[27:46] Speaker 6: own experience, they move into this place I call tucking in.
[27:49] Speaker 6: And as they tuck in, they begin to sleep more.
[27:53] Speaker 6: Every once in a while, they'll pop up and they
[27:55] Speaker 6: may talk. One lady talked about the nuns on the hill.
[27:58] Speaker 6: She came up and she had seen some kind of
[28:00] Speaker 6: vista with the nuns on the hill. She was a
[28:02] Speaker 6: good Catholic. Other people are able to come all the
[28:06] Speaker 6: way back and be fully present and fully here. I
[28:11] Speaker 6: see that stepping away and coming back and stepping away
[28:14] Speaker 6: and coming back as part of the process of letting go.
[28:18] Speaker 1: They are stepping away and coming back. They are practicing
[28:22] Speaker 1: letting go of this physical world. And as they tuck
[28:26] Speaker 1: in deeper, their language also changes. You might hear them
[28:30] Speaker 1: ask for their shoes or they say they need to
[28:33] Speaker 1: find their purse. Families often try to correct them saying,
[28:37] Speaker 1: you don't need your shoes or your purse. You're in
[28:40] Speaker 1: a bed. But Dr. Atkins explains that they are not confused.
[28:45] Speaker 1: They are speaking in metaphors. They are using human words
[28:48] Speaker 1: to try to explain a massive spiritual shift.
[28:53] Speaker 6: So when I hear family members say, my person is
[28:57] Speaker 6: so confused today, I lean in and I say, tell
[29:00] Speaker 6: me what's the confusion? What are you hearing them talk about?
[29:03] Speaker 6: They want me to take the chains off.
[29:06] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[29:06] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[29:07] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[29:07] Speaker 6: So for me, this person is pretty far along in
[29:11] Speaker 6: their journey. They probably haven't talked very much at all.
[29:14] Speaker 6: Every once in a while, they're saying something like, lift
[29:16] Speaker 6: me up, lift me up, up. Do you want to
[29:19] Speaker 6: move up in the bed? They're not here in present
[29:22] Speaker 6: time wanting to get lifted up in the bed. They
[29:24] Speaker 6: want to get lifted up, whatever that means to them.
[29:27] Speaker 6: Take the chains off. My dad said, take the chains off.
[29:30] Speaker 6: And I leaned over and I messed with his hand
[29:32] Speaker 6: and I said, okay, dad, they're off. He did the
[29:34] Speaker 6: same thing with my brother a little bit later. These
[29:36] Speaker 6: long stretches of quiet, though, happen. And in between, if
[29:41] Speaker 6: you're lucky and you're close enough and you're paying attention
[29:44] Speaker 6: and you understand that it's not confusion and you listen
[29:47] Speaker 6: to it as a metaphor, what could it mean? What
[29:51] Speaker 6: could it mean for you? What could it mean for them?
[29:55] Speaker 1: By simply agreeing with them, by participating in their reality,
[29:59] Speaker 1: instead of arguing with them, we give them the comfort
[30:03] Speaker 1: they need to continue their journey. We help them unchain
[30:07] Speaker 1: themselves from their physical bodies. As part of this preparation,
[30:12] Speaker 1: the dying also frequently begin to use travel language. They
[30:18] Speaker 1: know they are going somewhere and their consciousness is getting
[30:21] Speaker 1: ready for the trip.
[30:23] Speaker 6: I want to go home at the beginning of the
[30:25] Speaker 6: journey often. I want to go home. I want to
[30:27] Speaker 6: get out of here. We often take that very literally.
[30:30] Speaker 6: Another thing people will often ask for as they're starting
[30:33] Speaker 6: in the trajectories, they want their luggage, they want their purse,
[30:36] Speaker 6: they want their shoes, they need the map. And often
[30:39] Speaker 6: family members, you don't need any of that. There was
[30:41] Speaker 6: a guy standing at the door. He wanted to go
[30:44] Speaker 6: to the basketball court and it was three o'clock in
[30:47] Speaker 6: the morning and he coached basketball at some point and
[30:51] Speaker 6: his wife kept trying to reason with him.
[30:53] Speaker 1: We can't go.
[30:53] Speaker 6: It's three o'clock in the morning. And when I heard
[30:56] Speaker 6: about it later, I understood that he's going back in time.
[31:01] Speaker 6: He's going back to experiences that he's had before and
[31:04] Speaker 6: he's living in them. It's not that he's watching them.
[31:07] Speaker 6: He's in it.
[31:08] Speaker 1: They are living in those memories. They are packing their bags.
[31:13] Speaker 1: But what happens if they aren't quite ready to travel?
[31:16] Speaker 1: What if there is something holding them back? Dr. Atkins
[31:21] Speaker 1: points out that sometimes the dying will use metaphors to
[31:25] Speaker 1: let us know they still have unfinished business here on
[31:29] Speaker 1: Earth and they cannot cross over until it is resolved.
[31:34] Speaker 6: There's often a thing about unfinished business that looks like
[31:40] Speaker 6: there's some house that didn't get done or the jet's
[31:42] Speaker 6: on the runway, but the doors are not on the
[31:44] Speaker 6: jet or that the wheels are not on the jet.
[31:48] Speaker 6: When I hear some of those things, I wonder, it's
[31:50] Speaker 6: like they're almost ready, but they're not quite there. One
[31:53] Speaker 6: of the women talked to me about her mother said,
[31:56] Speaker 6: can you see the table?
[31:58] Speaker 1: Like through the wall.
[31:59] Speaker 6: There it is, mom. The table, it's all set. Everything's ready,
[32:02] Speaker 6: but they haven't poured the wine. And she thought, oh,
[32:04] Speaker 6: when they pour the wine, she's going to go. And
[32:06] Speaker 6: that was it. I have had conversations in front of
[32:10] Speaker 6: spouses who were non-communicative. The spouse that's here and the children.
[32:16] Speaker 6: So that spouse can hear that. The person is going
[32:19] Speaker 6: to be taken care of or where they're going to live.
[32:21] Speaker 6: And sometimes dying comes pretty soon after that.
[32:25] Speaker 1: Maybe it's causal. Maybe it's not.
[32:26] Speaker 5: I don't know.
[32:28] Speaker 6: One of the guys needed to go see his son
[32:30] Speaker 6: who was in prison. And somehow they figured out how
[32:33] Speaker 6: to get him to a closer prison in San Antonio.
[32:35] Speaker 6: And we took him and he got to go buy
[32:38] Speaker 6: his son a Coke. He didn't take pain medicine until
[32:42] Speaker 6: he got in the car to go back. And once
[32:44] Speaker 6: he got back in the bed, he didn't get back
[32:45] Speaker 6: out of the bed.
[32:46] Speaker 1: He was done.
[32:46] Speaker 6: He had done the thing he needed to do.
[32:49] Speaker 1: He had done the thing he needed to do. He
[32:52] Speaker 1: bought his son a Coke and his soul was finally
[32:55] Speaker 1: free to leave. Once that earthly business is complete, the
[32:59] Speaker 1: spiritual visions begin. And Dr. Atkins has noticed that these
[33:03] Speaker 1: visions actually follow a very specific pattern, moving from strangers
[33:09] Speaker 1: on the outside to family members right inside the room.
[33:14] Speaker 6: There's this trajectory of experiences that happens for people. The
[33:19] Speaker 6: people who are dying will often see people they don't
[33:21] Speaker 6: know first.
[33:22] Speaker 1: They'll see people outside.
[33:23] Speaker 6: Then they begin to hear people inside. Eventually may hear
[33:30] Speaker 6: somebody from their family. Eventually those people come into the room.
[33:35] Speaker 6: And when it's people they don't know, if it's somebody
[33:38] Speaker 6: they don't know, there's still a little ways to go
[33:40] Speaker 6: in my mind. And when it's family members, And they're
[33:44] Speaker 6: right at the end of the bed and they're able
[33:45] Speaker 6: to talk to them. That's a different thing when they're
[33:50] Speaker 6: looking up in this part of the room. So they're
[33:52] Speaker 6: separated from reality a little bit more. And they're looking
[33:55] Speaker 6: up here versus looking up in the corners of the room.
[33:58] Speaker 6: The delirium and the confusion and all that stuff gets discounted.
[34:01] Speaker 6: And I don't think we should. I think it's part
[34:04] Speaker 6: of the experience and there's more to it. So this
[34:07] Speaker 6: kind of stuff happens. And then there's some reaching around
[34:10] Speaker 6: the side of the room, like they're reaching to somebody.
[34:12] Speaker 6: Sometimes they can tell you about that. Sometimes they can't.
[34:15] Speaker 1: They stop looking out the window and they start looking up.
[34:19] Speaker 1: They start reaching out for the loved ones who are
[34:22] Speaker 1: waiting for them. As they get closer to the veil,
[34:25] Speaker 1: that veil becomes so incredibly thin that sometimes the living
[34:30] Speaker 1: people sitting in the room get to experience the magic
[34:34] Speaker 1: of the other side right along with them. In the
[34:38] Speaker 1: hospice world, this is known as a shared death experience.
[34:42] Speaker 1: It is a profound moment where the energy of the
[34:45] Speaker 1: afterlife literally spills over into the physical room. Sometimes family
[34:51] Speaker 1: members even find themselves stepping outside of their own bodies
[34:56] Speaker 1: to witness the reunion.
[34:58] Speaker 6: Mother's in the bed. My friend was up with her mother. Again, mothers,
[35:04] Speaker 6: they're out of body and watching dad come across to
[35:07] Speaker 6: get mom. Dad has already passed. So, you know, in
[35:10] Speaker 6: the how do we prove this? I don't know how
[35:12] Speaker 6: we prove it. And I don't really care. We don't
[35:13] Speaker 6: have to. I just think it's super cool. It's meaningful
[35:16] Speaker 6: for the woman. She's got an experience now after her
[35:20] Speaker 6: mother dies, grieving my mother. But I have this shared
[35:23] Speaker 6: experience where I saw my dad coming and my dad
[35:25] Speaker 6: was pretty excited to see my mom and my mom
[35:27] Speaker 6: was pretty excited to see my dad.
[35:28] Speaker 1: A shared vision of a husband crossing the veil to
[35:33] Speaker 1: get his wife. That's just breathtaking. Other times, this shared
[35:37] Speaker 1: death experience feels like an undeniable energetic shift in the
[35:42] Speaker 1: room itself. I want you to hear this final beautiful
[35:45] Speaker 1: story Dr. Atkins shares about a woman who had been
[35:49] Speaker 1: completely non-communicative and what happened when the heavy French doors
[35:54] Speaker 1: to her room suddenly blew wide open.
[35:58] Speaker 6: We had a woman who came to abode. The doors
[36:02] Speaker 6: blew open. We had these beautiful French doors in each
[36:05] Speaker 6: of the room. The doors blew open. She had not
[36:07] Speaker 6: been communicative. This beautiful smile on her face. Her family
[36:14] Speaker 6: went bananas and we didn't know what the bananas was about.
[36:18] Speaker 6: And the woman said a word that helped them understand
[36:21] Speaker 6: who this was. The boyfriend had jumped off of a
[36:24] Speaker 6: bridge in San Antonio and died right before this woman
[36:27] Speaker 6: came into the space. And the family understood that the
[36:31] Speaker 6: young man had come to to be with her. The
[36:34] Speaker 6: doors blew open. He came in the room. The woman
[36:37] Speaker 6: who's dying is kissing the air and makes a sound,
[36:42] Speaker 6: some kind of name that is what she called this
[36:45] Speaker 6: young man. And it makes me have goosebumps on my
[36:48] Speaker 6: face right now because I think how super cool is
[36:51] Speaker 6: that whatever pain he was in, that seems to be
[36:55] Speaker 6: gone now and he can come be here for her
[36:57] Speaker 6: and maybe help her go wherever she needs to go.
[37:01] Speaker 1: He came back for her, an invisible embrace that brought
[37:05] Speaker 1: a beautiful smile to a dying woman's face and brought
[37:08] Speaker 1: goosebumps to the living people who witnessed the sheer energy
[37:13] Speaker 1: of that reunion. When we stop correcting our loved ones,
[37:17] Speaker 1: when we listen to their metaphors, and when we hold
[37:20] Speaker 1: space for miracles happening right there in the room, we
[37:25] Speaker 1: get to witness the soul unchaining itself from the physical world.
[37:30] Speaker 1: This is truly divine work. When we come back for
[37:34] Speaker 1: our final segment, we're going to explore the final physical
[37:38] Speaker 1: steps of this journey. And we will hear from Nurse
[37:40] Speaker 1: Penny about the beautiful and surprising phenomenon known as terminal lucidity.
[37:47] Speaker 1: We'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the
[37:51] Speaker 1: Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal
[37:56] Speaker 1: Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm
[38:18] Speaker 1: Sandra Champlain. Talking about hospice today, it may seem like
[38:23] Speaker 1: a scary subject thinking about the last days of our
[38:26] Speaker 1: loved ones, but also it's scary thinking of the last
[38:30] Speaker 1: days of us. Our ego does not want to go.
[38:34] Speaker 1: Mine doesn't want to go. I'm not afraid of the afterlife,
[38:37] Speaker 1: but I'm afraid of the getting there. So we're in
[38:40] Speaker 1: this together. And hopefully... You, like me, find that these
[38:45] Speaker 1: words are very comforting. Nobody dies alone. We are helped
[38:49] Speaker 1: across the veil and we will all be in our
[38:51] Speaker 1: true home with our loved ones after our jobs here
[38:55] Speaker 1: on earth are over. I want to now introduce you
[38:58] Speaker 1: to a woman who has dedicated her life to normalizing
[39:02] Speaker 1: the dying process. Penny Smith, known to millions on our
[39:06] Speaker 1: YouTube channel as Hospice Nurse Penny, has been a certified
[39:11] Speaker 1: hospice nurse for nearly 20 years. She has witnessed the
[39:14] Speaker 1: reality of the end of life firsthand, and she uses
[39:18] Speaker 1: her massive platform to help take the fear of dying away.
[39:24] Speaker 1: One of the most beautiful and surprising things she discusses
[39:27] Speaker 1: is a phenomenon that she says happens to nearly half
[39:31] Speaker 1: of all dying patients.
[39:33] Speaker 7: Terminal lucidity is very common. That can happen in about
[39:37] Speaker 7: four out of 10 dying people. And that's really when
[39:41] Speaker 7: they are close to the end of their life. And
[39:43] Speaker 7: then they have a burst of energy and they wake
[39:46] Speaker 7: up and they want to visit. They want to eat
[39:48] Speaker 7: a meal.
[39:50] Speaker 1: Somebody who has dementia.
[39:51] Speaker 7: Might all of a sudden become very clear and remember
[39:54] Speaker 7: everybody and have a conversation with people.
[39:56] Speaker 1: A sudden burst of energy, a chance to eat. one
[40:00] Speaker 1: last meal together, or for someone with dementia to have
[40:03] Speaker 1: one final crystal clear conversation with their family, it is
[40:09] Speaker 1: as if the soul rallies all of its remaining physical
[40:13] Speaker 1: strength to say a proper goodbye before packing its bags
[40:17] Speaker 1: and getting on that train. As they get ready to depart,
[40:21] Speaker 1: the welcoming committee always arrives. Listen to Nurse Penny share
[40:25] Speaker 1: this incredible story about a patient who was having a
[40:28] Speaker 1: very specific deathbed vision.
[40:32] Speaker 7: One of my patients was in a room next to
[40:35] Speaker 7: the hospice nurse's station.
[40:38] Speaker 1: And I was.
[40:39] Speaker 7: Charting and I heard him yelling. And I went into
[40:42] Speaker 7: the room and he was looking up at the corner
[40:44] Speaker 7: of the room and he was crying. He had tears
[40:48] Speaker 7: just pouring, pouring down his face. And he was reaching
[40:51] Speaker 7: up to the corner room and he was yelling, Ingrid, Ingrid.
[40:56] Speaker 7: I knew his wife had died a year before him.
[40:59] Speaker 7: And I asked him, is that your wife?
[41:02] Speaker 1: And he said, yes, yes. And I see her.
[41:06] Speaker 7: She's right there. I see her. And I said, is
[41:10] Speaker 7: she coming to get you? And he said, yes, yes,
[41:14] Speaker 7: but not today, tomorrow. And I thought, well, that's really specific.
[41:20] Speaker 7: And he didn't die the next day. It took him
[41:22] Speaker 7: a couple of days to die. And when the caregiver
[41:25] Speaker 7: who had cared for Ingrid when she died and for
[41:28] Speaker 7: my patient while he was sick in the last year
[41:30] Speaker 7: of his life, when she came to pick up his belongings,
[41:34] Speaker 7: I told her the story. And she said, well, it
[41:36] Speaker 7: was always like Ingrid to be late.
[41:39] Speaker 1: I love that so much. It goes to show that
[41:41] Speaker 1: our personalities survive physical death. We don't suddenly become rigid,
[41:46] Speaker 1: perfect statues. We are still wonderfully, perfectly ourselves with our
[41:51] Speaker 1: personalities intact. But what happens after they cross over? As
[41:56] Speaker 1: a hospice nurse, Penny is surrounded by the veil thinning
[42:00] Speaker 1: all the time. While her patients don't typically visit her
[42:04] Speaker 1: from the other side, She had an incredibly profound experience
[42:08] Speaker 1: when her own father passed away. It happened about three
[42:12] Speaker 1: weeks after his death while she was sleeping.
[42:15] Speaker 7: So probably about three weeks after my dad died, I
[42:19] Speaker 7: was sleeping and my dad came to me and he
[42:23] Speaker 7: was like bright orange light and warm, really warm. I
[42:28] Speaker 7: could feel him and just energy, just exuding energy. And
[42:33] Speaker 7: it was his voice and he said, It's time to go.
[42:36] Speaker 7: And I said, okay. And then I said, oh, but
[42:42] Speaker 7: I'm going to have to say goodbye to the kids.
[42:43] Speaker 7: They're really going to miss me. And he said, no,
[42:45] Speaker 7: it's not time for you to go. It's time for
[42:48] Speaker 7: me to go. And I said, oh, okay.
[42:52] Speaker 1: Well, I love you. And he goes, I love you.
[42:55] Speaker 7: And I started crying and he said, I love you, honey.
[42:58] Speaker 7: I love you, honey. And I said, I love you.
[43:00] Speaker 7: And I woke up. I hate to say woke up
[43:03] Speaker 7: because it makes it sound like I was dreaming. And
[43:05] Speaker 7: it definitely was not like a dream. This was really
[43:07] Speaker 7: real what happened to me. But I woke up and
[43:10] Speaker 7: my husband had his arms around me and I'm still crying.
[43:13] Speaker 7: And I'm saying, I love you. I love you. And
[43:15] Speaker 7: my husband is saying, I love you, honey. I love you.
[43:18] Speaker 7: And I thought, that's strange because my dad never called
[43:21] Speaker 7: me honey. And my husband has never called me honey.
[43:23] Speaker 7: Neither one of them have ever called me honey. So
[43:25] Speaker 7: I thought, well, that's strange. And then he said, you
[43:29] Speaker 7: were talking to your dad. And I said, no, my
[43:32] Speaker 7: dad was talking to me. I was answering him.
[43:36] Speaker 1: The validation in that story is beautiful. An entirely new
[43:39] Speaker 1: term of endearment that provided proof that she wasn't just dreaming.
[43:45] Speaker 1: Our loved ones don't just check in to say hello.
[43:48] Speaker 1: They step in to give us strength when we are
[43:50] Speaker 1: navigating our darkest moments here on earth. Not long after
[43:54] Speaker 1: her father passed, Penny's sister was going through an agonizing
[43:58] Speaker 1: situation trying to gain emergency custody of her four-year-old granddaughter.
[44:04] Speaker 1: She was overwhelmed, scared, and didn't know how to move forward.
[44:09] Speaker 1: So she sat down to meditate.
[44:12] Speaker 7: She was meditating and she sees a bench and my
[44:16] Speaker 7: dad is sitting on the bench. And there's a dark
[44:20] Speaker 7: figure sitting next to him. And she is asking my dad,
[44:24] Speaker 7: what do I do? And he says, Laura, you know
[44:27] Speaker 7: what to do. You just need to do it. And
[44:30] Speaker 7: it was just like a turning point for her because
[44:33] Speaker 7: she all of a sudden had the strength. She knew
[44:37] Speaker 7: what to do. She just couldn't do it until my
[44:40] Speaker 7: dad said that to her. And so she started down
[44:43] Speaker 7: this pathway of able to evict her daughter from the
[44:47] Speaker 7: house and get emergency custody of her granddaughter and she
[44:51] Speaker 7: said each time that she would meditate the figure of
[44:55] Speaker 7: my dad would get like more transparent but the dark
[45:01] Speaker 7: figure remained until finally at one point the dark figure
[45:05] Speaker 7: was all that was left and my dad was gone
[45:07] Speaker 7: and it was like my dad was there for her
[45:10] Speaker 7: when she needed him to be there and then He
[45:13] Speaker 7: was gone when she had everything taken care of.
[45:16] Speaker 1: He was there for her exactly when she needed him.
[45:20] Speaker 1: Our loved ones are our biggest cheerleaders. They're with us,
[45:25] Speaker 1: standing by, sitting on that bench, waiting to lend us
[45:29] Speaker 1: their strength. We just have to be willing to sit down,
[45:32] Speaker 1: get quiet and listen. As we wrap up today's deep
[45:36] Speaker 1: dive into the profound magic of hospice, I want to
[45:40] Speaker 1: leave you with one final, incredibly reassuring thought from Nurse Penny.
[45:45] Speaker 1: When we face our final days, the fear of the
[45:49] Speaker 1: unknown can be really heavy, but the ultimate destination for
[45:54] Speaker 1: every single soul is complete peace.
[45:58] Speaker 7: By the time they get to the end of life,
[46:00] Speaker 7: they are usually at a place of acceptance. And I
[46:04] Speaker 7: have rarely seen anybody who did not have a peaceful
[46:08] Speaker 7: death at the end. Now, sometimes people have terminal agitation
[46:13] Speaker 7: that is caused by existential suffering and we do have
[46:16] Speaker 7: to sedate them until their death and they have a
[46:18] Speaker 7: peaceful death. But most of the time people do get
[46:22] Speaker 7: to a place of acceptance of death before they die.
[46:27] Speaker 7: And really, you have to be there before you can
[46:28] Speaker 7: have a peaceful death, because if you don't, you won't.
[46:31] Speaker 7: And that is when we get that terminal agitation. Or
[46:33] Speaker 7: I did have one patient who at the very end
[46:36] Speaker 7: was really struggling, really scared. And at the moment of death,
[46:41] Speaker 7: he was finally peaceful. He finally looked up at the
[46:45] Speaker 7: ceiling and just peace washed over his face. And then
[46:48] Speaker 7: he was finally peaceful.
[46:50] Speaker 1: Peace washed over his face. And then he was finally peaceful.
[46:56] Speaker 1: I hope today's episode brought some peace to you. Hearing
[47:00] Speaker 1: the voices of Nurse Julie, Dr. Barbato, Dr. Atkins, Nurse Penny,
[47:05] Speaker 1: and even myself reminds us that we're never, ever walking
[47:09] Speaker 1: this path alone. The transition from this life is not
[47:13] Speaker 1: a cold medical event. It is a sacred spiritual journey
[47:18] Speaker 1: surrounded by earthly angels in scrubs and heavenly angels waiting
[47:24] Speaker 1: to take our hands I want to remind you of
[47:27] Speaker 1: the episodes I told you about earlier. If someone is
[47:31] Speaker 1: approaching the end, or even if you yourself just want
[47:34] Speaker 1: to listen to be more comforted about the dying process,
[47:38] Speaker 1: the episodes are 122, 224, 275, 287, and 294. And
[47:40] Speaker 1: please don't forget that grief is a messy road. It
[47:42] Speaker 1: doesn't just happen when someone passes. It can happen when
[47:56] Speaker 1: somebody receives news of an illness that maybe they have
[48:00] Speaker 1: or someone they love has. This is called anticipatory grief.
[48:04] Speaker 1: And we can go through the process of all the
[48:08] Speaker 1: pain and issues that grief causes. If you don't yet
[48:12] Speaker 1: have a copy of my book, We Don't Die, A
[48:15] Speaker 1: Skeptic's Discovery of Life After Death, chapter 10 is dedicated
[48:19] Speaker 1: to grief education, to understand grief. and some of the
[48:23] Speaker 1: things we can do to lessen the pain. If you'd
[48:26] Speaker 1: like a free PDF copy of it, I'm always happy
[48:30] Speaker 1: to give them away. Just go to wedontdie.com. And at
[48:34] Speaker 1: the bottom of the page, it says you can join
[48:36] Speaker 1: my Insiders Club. Just a fancy way of saying my
[48:39] Speaker 1: email list. So just enter your name and address. A
[48:43] Speaker 1: lot of things will pop up and you will be
[48:45] Speaker 1: emailed them as well, including a great list of episodes
[48:49] Speaker 1: by different topics. a copy of my book, and some
[48:52] Speaker 1: other surprises. Also, while you're at wedontdie.com, we have classes,
[48:58] Speaker 1: you can find past episodes, and I always love to
[49:02] Speaker 1: invite you to come to our free Sunday gathering inspirational
[49:06] Speaker 1: service on Zoom. They're so fun, they're so empowering, and
[49:11] Speaker 1: there's a live medium demonstration included. They start at two
[49:14] Speaker 1: o'clock New York time every single Sunday, and you can
[49:18] Speaker 1: register at wedontdie.com And last, if these episodes make a
[49:22] Speaker 1: difference for you, could I ask for you to share?
[49:25] Speaker 1: I know I ask this often on episodes, but you
[49:29] Speaker 1: never know who's going through a tough time or a
[49:32] Speaker 1: loved one is passing or someone has passed. And just
[49:35] Speaker 1: hearing these stories can make all the difference in the world.
[49:39] Speaker 1: So whether you're bold enough to share on your social
[49:41] Speaker 1: media or you're just sitting around your dinner table, you
[49:45] Speaker 1: can always ask, have you ever heard of end of
[49:47] Speaker 1: life visions or what do you know about hospice? Believe
[49:50] Speaker 1: it or not, in just one conversation, you can let
[49:53] Speaker 1: someone know they're not alone and that hope is available.
[49:57] Speaker 1: In fact, most people actually do believe in the afterlife,
[50:00] Speaker 1: but most people are also scared to share that thinking
[50:04] Speaker 1: people will think they are strange. And yes, I was
[50:06] Speaker 1: one of them. So my friend, until next time, please remember,
[50:10] Speaker 1: love never dies. You're never truly alone. And your loved
[50:13] Speaker 1: ones are right with you as your biggest cheerleaders. They
[50:17] Speaker 1: know how tough human life is, but they're with you
[50:19] Speaker 1: every step of the way. I'm Sandra Champlain. Thank you
[50:23] Speaker 1: so much for listening to Shades of the Afterlife on
[50:26] Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
[50:39] Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
[50:42] Speaker 2: AM paranormal podcast network. Make sure and check out all
[50:45] Speaker 2: our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going to iHeartRadio.com.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.