Author Description

Nearing Death Awareness is a phenomenon rarely discussed by those who have experienced it and often dismissed by our culture because it defies science or logic. Yet roughly half of bereaved people, as well as nurses and others who constantly observe the dying, have stories of coincidental visions at the exact moment of a loved one's death, comforting visits from a departed friend in an hour of need, and observations of the uncanny precision with which the dying predict their own deaths, even when they appear to the trained eye to be on the brink of recovery. These surprisingly common occurrences point toward a larger spiritual reality, and the reality of life (or something else) after death. They also have the power to console and comfort us and to transform our understanding of mortality. Prompted by her own family's experiences surrounding the deaths of her father and sister, journalist Patricia Pearson examines the scientific and anecdotal evidence to challenge current assumptions regarding what we know and what we are still unable to explain about what happens to us at the threshold of death.--Adapted from publisher description.