Baby Angel Babcock - have you experience this?

[ws582]

I read the following this morning on Good Morning America about baby Angel Babcock:

Angel's mother, Moriah Babcock, 20, father Joseph Babcock, 21, and two siblings Jayden and Kendall were found dead in the same field as the toddler Friday afternoon. Angel's grandmother told ABC News that when she let her granddaughter go Sunday afternoon, she knew the baby girl was going in the arms of her father."We were all around the bed, I had my hand on the side of her, and I reached for her hand, and was holding her hand," Babcock said. "I don't know what made me let go but she put her arms straight up, she was daddy's little girl. So daddy picked her up and took her. The whole room seen that. He was just like, standing in front of her. She wanted to go with daddy."

I'm very interested in becoming a hospice nurse, so I've been doing a lot of research. I've read several times how some people who are very close to dying reach out or act as if a loved one is there with them. Am very interested to hear if anyone has witnessed something like this. Thank you :)

[ws582]

That gives me chills. It sounds like most of the deaths are peaceful. Is that right? I've been reading a lot of hospice care books and was wondering if it's unusual for people to suffer at the end like the lady you spoke of. I've worried about that going into this field.

[momof2guys]

I've only seen this once...I really believe that hospice is a calling. You need to know where your comfort zone is, does death scare you? For me it's a part of life-the same as birth..... I feel that a nurse needs to know where his/her spirituality is to have a peace working this job. You will know rather quickly if hosice is a fit for you.

[thegrayeyedgirl]

I agree with you...birth and death are all part of the same cycle of life and should be treated with equal care and consideration. That's why hospice is the field I've chosen :redbeathe

[tewdles, RN]

I had a patient tell me once that her mother was visiting her in the evenings, sitting on the side of her bed. She told me they were very nice visits, but, since her mother was dead she knew that this was meaningful. I simply held her hand and comforted her...she died within days of that visit.

Many, many people have spoken to me of visitors in their last days/weeks, even atheists. One guy in particular spoke of a very nice young man who was very handsome with beautiful blue eyes that visited him every evening. Ol Pete (not his real name) told me that they young man smiled a lot but never said anything, just sat next to him. He really enjoyed the visits. Pete was an atheist but he was comforted by those visits. I never suggested to him that the young man was not really there or was something other than what he said he was.

An elderly woman of christian faith told me of an angel that stayed with her, up in the corner of the room by the ceiling. She was comforted by that presence.

A young girl once told her mother several evenings in a row about "sparkles" that were in her room near the ceiling above her bed at night. The mother could not see them. The child was not afraid and found them comforting. When I attended the near death visit of the grandmother (she died during my stay) the child and mother arrived and the little girl said..."look mommy, gramma has sparkles too". Of course, we could not see them.

Many, many people reach out and/or open their eyes just before death. My mom opened her eyes, smiled, and took a last "sigh" of a breath.

We are each intitled to our opinions of what these things mean. I am comforted by them.