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.
