Observations placeholder

The Wisdom of Near Death Experiences - Dr Penny Sartori

A good friend, Dr Ayesha Ahmad, reported the following account of something she witnessed:

Agatha suffered with Alzheimer’s disease and was over 70 years of age. In her final years, Agatha’s children had attended to her in ways not too dissimilar from the maternal experience of their early years.

Every day, Agatha would adorn herself with beautiful pearl necklaces and wander through the nursing home, chatting to staff and residents alike with her usual sweet demeanour. After some years of relatively stable health, Agatha changed. The transition was rapid. Within a few days, Agatha’s body was manifested by weight-loss, fatigue, and it was apparent she was dying.

Agatha spent her final hours in a peaceful state, with her family holding her hands. Occasionally Agatha awoke, and attempted to express some of the last words she would ever utter. During one of these episodes, Agatha began repeating the name 'Jane'. To the staff who had nursed Agatha for many years and who had become familiar with the names and references that Agatha would precipitate into her flurry of conversations, the name 'Jane' bore no meaning. However, the sentiments that accompanied 'Jane' were wholly evident to be of meaning to Agatha.

On witnessing Agatha's repeating of 'Jane', her family became startled. Somehow this name also connected to a shared sentiment, a meaning that related to all of their experiences. Her daughter quietly explained: Jane was the first-born daughter of Agatha. Sadly, Jane died during her first year of life and had left a legacy of grief so strong that Agatha had not said her name since.

However, in this setting of Agatha’s home, although not the home she had made with her family, and the body dying - not flourishing as it once did, when it flourished so much she gave life to four children - Agatha felt the memory, felt her daughter's birth and her daughter’s death. She brought her into the room to be alongside the rest of her siblings, so that the unity of the brothers and sisters was complete, under the watchful gaze of their mother - the gaze that greeted them upon life and the gaze that helped and enabled their mother to fall through to her death whilst supported by their love, a memory that could never be forgotten.