The Phone Call from Beyond

[Hellllllo Nurse]

About twelve years ago, I was working nights as an LPN at an inpatient hospice unit. It was a quiet night. I was sitting in a patient's room with the patient and her family.

I will call the patient "Gladys."

Gladys was quietly actively dying, and her son "Bill" and daughter-in-law "Sue" were with her. I heard the phone ring at the desk. The CNA "Mary", answered it, took a message and met me in the hallway. She said "That was a weird call. It was some guy named "Harry." He said to tell Gladys that he'll be here for her in a half hour."

I walked back to the patient's room and relayed the message to Bill, Sue and Gladys. Gladys was non-responsive, so I leaned over and spoke the message quietly in her ear. The message didn't make sense to me, but I figured the family would know what is was about. Bill and Sue didn't say anything, but they gave me the strangest look. I went back to the desk.

A couple of minutes later, Bill and Sue came to the desk. Sue said "Are you sure the caller's name was Harry? The only Harry we know is Gladys' husband, and he's been dead for five years." Mary was sitting there, and read from the message log, confirming the message.

Bill said "That doesn't make any sense." Then he and Sue went back to Gladys' room. A little while later, Sue came to tell me that Gladys was not breathing. I went to check. She breathed two more times, and stopped. I assessed for signs of life, and wrote down the time of death and called the Charge Nurse, who confirmed it.

When we checked, we saw that Gladys' time of death was one half hour TO THE MINUTE from the time that Harry called. Mary said that his voice had had an echoing, staticy quality to it.

Was it really Gladys' dead husband calling to let everyone know her time was at hand? Who knows!?

We all talked about that incident for a long time after that.

[mb1949]

My daughter is a MD/PHD student at Columbia, no one and I mean no one calls her at school, My mother, her grandmother past away the year before she finished her undergrad. Never got to see her graduate from college, but always encourage her in her dream of being a doctor. About 2 or 3 years later my daughter was really stressing about the work load she had taken on and was about to give it all up. She arrived at lab that day and the lab secretary told her she had a phone call that morning from her grandmother. No one, not even me knows the number of her lab. She was sure it was a mistake or wrong number. No insisted the lab secretary she asked for you by name and left no message "just tell her grandma called". We both knew then that grandma was with us and watching us. Needless to say she stuck it out and got her MD and it writing her thesis now for her Phd.

[EkInRI]

I loved this story!

Everyone else that likes this kind of thing, have you read about Oscar the cat from the nursing home in RI??

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/does-cat-predict-deaths-of-patients/20070725172309990001

Hope you enjoy it, if you haven't already read about him.

Erica

[1fastbmw]

EKINRI....wow...that's awesome! I love reading stuff like this. It's funny how people try to explain away things that are out of the ordinary. Yes, the animal behavior researcher may be an expert, but then again....it was observed 25 times by doctors and nurses in person! There will always be things we cannot explain. If sharks can sense bodily movement under sand from the electrical impulses within muscles, who knows what other incredible senses do animals have that we are yet to discover!?

[pearlnum1]

after 32 years of nursing practice from hospital to home/hospice care, I have come to believe that not only do most of patients see and recognize loved ones that have already passed; but, they are there to make the pt's passing easier. The death is more peaceful and less traumatic. I also have sat at the bedside by patients that are not at peace spiritually and the death is cold, and dark, and restless for the patient and the caregivers. Over 32 years of practice, I will never be able to explain all that I've seen, but know that the events have made me wiser and more compassionate.

[KaroSnowQueen, RN]

I honestly believe it was her husband. I have always believed in these sort of things and even more after it happened to me.

My mom had been killed in a very ugly bus vs small car wreck, she being in the small car. My sister and I had gone to mom's house to pick out her stuff for the funeral. We felt very odd, as though Mom would come home any minute and yell at us for going through her stuff.

At one point, her phone in the living room rang. My sister was sitting on the arm of the sofa, and was closer to the phone than I was, but she didn't move to answer it. I ran, not wanting to hear Mom's voice on the answering machine. I picked up the phone on the second ring.

I hear, THROUGH THE RECEIVER, "Hi, this is Daisy."

Mother's name was Daisy. It was HER voice. It sounded of course, just like the beginning of her answering machine message. The rest of the message did not play. There was no sound of clicking like hanging up. There was no dial tone. Just, no pun intended, dead air. And it never sounded a dial tone until we hung up the phone again, just that eerie weird "feeling" of dead air.

My sister did not hear it, verifying that it was not the machine playing the message out loud into the room. I guess my face registered my shock, as she asked, "Who was it?? What's wrong now??"

I told her "It was Mom, calling to tell us she made it there, I think," and she too was as freaked out as I was. We tried and tried after that to make the machine play the message out into the room and it wouldn't do it unless you opened the machine and intentionally tried to. Other relatives are using that machine (with a different tape) and it has never ever done anything like that since.

I sincerely believe it was Mom calling us to tell us she had made it to Heaven. We had other things happen that seemed supernatural in the days after mother's death, but that was the first and the one that hangs on so strongly.

[mb1949]

Yes I believe it was her letting you and your sister know she was alright, what a beautiful thing

[rhelna]

I truly believe that we are able to feel the presence of our past loved ones at difficult and happy times of our lives. Sometimes God gives us reassurance through a memory from those past to be encouraged or strengthened when we need it most! Great job.

[HeavensNurse]

I need to let you know about my Grandmother coming to say "Goodbye" to me, when she died. I was 12 years old, just about to fall asleep, about 10:30 at night, when she appeared in the doorway of my closet. She told me she loved me, and to be "a good girl". She then disappeared. Just after that the phone rang in the kitchen. I got up to answer it, and my mother was just getting to it, and I told her "Grandma just died". Well it was my father's mother, and he worked the night shift, so he was just about to wake up to go to work. My mother's reply was "DO NOT LET YOUR FATHER HEAR YOU SAY THAT!" She then answered the phone. It was my uncle, calling to inform us that my grandma had just died. When my mother hung up the phone, she looked me straight in the eye, and said "I don't even want to know how you knew that." We never discussed how I knew. Since then I have had wonderful experiences, and I have gone on to help hundreds, if not thousands of hospice patients die peacefully in the last twenty years. When people tell me "Jeesh! Your job must be depressing!" I tell them, NOT AT ALL, I look at life differently, and I am blessed to share a very special time with my patients while they transition to the next part of their life cycle. Sorry this is so long, but I just wanted to share. :redpinkhe

[dpbrown523]

Reading these stories has given me chill bumps and it's 100 degrees here in TX.

My dad passed away here in my house Dec 22, 2007 from metastatic stomach cancer. I took care of him the last 3 months of his life, along with the help of my gracious husband. While Dad was alive he was talking about his brother sleeping in the bed with him, and this brother died some 70 years ago. My garage door opened and closed constantly where I had to go unplug it. The TV wouldn't shut off, just glowed white. Just weird stuff happening while he was dying for those 3 months. I was in the other room a couple of days before he died and he hollered out "Is Ray coming?" Ray is my brother and I just happened to be IM-ming him. I told Ray what dad said and he said, "uh oh I better get over there." He lives a few hours away and is a RN too. He came and on Friday night even though Dad wasn't conscious, me, my brother and sister all sat on the couch in the living room with Dad there and he would have been so happy to have us all together like that. Mom wouldn't come over or help with him much because I think emotionally she just couldn't handle it. Just stayed so distant. Well as I was reading your stories the TV in the other room kept coming on. I'm sitting here with tears streaming down my face as I write this. Anyway, after they took him to the funeral home, a couple of days later my sister, husband, and I went for the first viewing. We walked into the viewing room and I leaned over him and said, "Oh Daddy you look so good!!!" He was dressed up in a tie and coat and looked great. Just then my phone went off, and I said, "Oh great, this always happens at the worst times, when I'm at the doctor's office or something my phone goes off. Oh wait, it's a text message, from my brother. It says, 'Try to love mama the best you can. You are an angel." My sister said, "That was Daddy talking to you, I know it was. He told Ray to tell you that! That sounds just like him!" By then Ray was already back in New Mexico and did not have any idea we were in the viewing room.

[ysth83, LPN, LVN]

OMG that was... you gave me goosebumps.

[Vito Andolini]

I believe it. We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.

Kind of makes me blush in the bedroom but... :chuckle:imbar

[Cathlabnurse46]

my turn.

my father died feb 25 2002 from lung ca. after a short dx (early dec) he decline palliative treatment and entered hospice. i did some hospice nursing, mostly as a contrat/agency nurse. in fact i was on call for my father-in-law the night he died of lung ca and pronounced him some 11 years earlier. i owned two alf's and dealt a lot with hospice with my own patient/residents, but this was my father. for a month i drove 2-3x a week from tampa to stuart (3 1/2 hours) to take him to the dr's until the day all my family could come together, feb 24th. my one brother fly in from philly. the family priest came, gave the sacrament of the sick, my father brothers and sister's few in. everyone said goodbye.

i made a promise years before to my father that he would not suffer as his father did. as we gathered around him he seemed "distracted" "peering around us". we could tell that my grandmother had arrived to see him. as everyone left, my brothers and i (my oldest and i) fulfilled our promises. i told my father that i could not remove his oxygen, that only he could but that i would give his morphine (roxinol) every 2 hours as ordered and make him comfortable. my one brother went home (about 1 mile), the other settled down in a chair, my mother to her room, and i laid by his side on a love seat (i like how that sounds). i got up every 2 hours and gave him roxinol until he went into active death. i bathed him, turned him every hour as i awoke... it was a very busy night.

as i laid down each time to drift off, i could feel someone literally sitting through me! my uncle, my father best friend, my cousin, my grandmother, my grandfather.... it was strange. finally at 5 am i fell asleep. i dreamed of a train.. an old train like a circus train going from town to town picking up souls along the way as it passed each village..... then i heard the wistle. the train passed hobe sound at 5:15 as i heard my father call out my name "douglas" i jumped to my feet (difficult because i have a fussed hip) and he was starring right at me, aganol respirations as i simultaneously yelled out "daddy". i woke up my brother & mother and called my other brother who said he was already getting dressed because my grandmother woke him. i cuddled up on my fathers lap for the last time as he passed away.

five years later, this past feb. my sister was hospitalized for pneumonia at age 49. i had made the decision a week earlier to intubate her as she went into ards. after she continued to deteriorate over the week, i again called the family together to withdraw life support. my mother had no idea what day it was. she was fighting the vent even on 50 mcgs of propafol, ativan and morphine breathing at 50-60 and using all of her accessory muscles for days. we all gathered around diane as i and the pulmonologist pulled the et tube. she died 5 years to the day of my father... with her family at her side. she was an alcoholic and addict who put us through hell... but in the end we were still there for her (a miracle in itself). i found no comfort in her death like in my fathers. it was much harder of a decision to make for me. no "big spiritual event" happened, she never came to visit me... i look for nothing either. i just hope that she found peace. i do take comfort know that where she died was safe, for many years she ran away and we had no idea where she was, or if she had food. i guess that was the miracle too.