The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments

by Hadley Vlahos

reminded myself to live for today, not the fears of tomorrow—a

just being there and offering a measure of comfort wasn’t only enough—it was everything.

When the time comes, we all want the same things: care, comfort, and connection.

I saw the number on the scale as I saw my grades: a direct reflection of my worth. High

For every story I had about a patient seeing a deceased loved one, or an inexplicable coincidence like the fire Edith had foreseen or the car wreck Al had intuited, my co-workers had ten more. I couldn’t ignore the evidence of something more beyond death. To me, that was no longer rational.

practicing coming from a place of empathy rather than sympathy.

felt their pain, I felt their loss, and it affected me deeply.

think this ability to feel what other people are feeling is part of what makes me a good nurse, and especially a good hospice nurse. But it also takes a personal toll, and I’m sure it’s one of the reasons why nurses experience so many mental health challenges and don’t last for long in the field. In fact, only one out of every four hospice nurses makes it beyond five years,

Empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to feel for a person and their situation without being personally affected by it. Empathy allows me to be present and compassionate without taking on a situation as my own, and it has allowed me to continue b...

how you live your life is more important than what you believe in. I’ve

I’ve seen just as many patients who aren’t religious and don’t believe in an afterlife have end-of-life visitations from loved ones as I have those who do believe in a life after this one.

and I don’t believe that’s the result of a chemical reaction in our brain in those final hours. There’s a big difference between hallucinations and the sort of visitations described in this book—I’ve seen them both, and they’re not the same.

hallucinations can incite anxiety or fear, visitations bring with them a sense of calm and peace.

the similarities among my patients’ various end-of-life experiences have led me to conclude that there is something after this life.

This work has profoundly changed not only who I am as a nurse, but as a person.