My twin sister was hit by two cars while crossing a street in New York City on January 1, 1972. She was with a medical student at the time. She was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.

I was at a party with my wife and mother at my mother's apartment in NY. I became quite agitated and demanded to look at my sister's will. My mother found a copy and showed it to me and I calmed down. Shortly thereafter the phone rang and a person claiming to be a doctor asked me to come to the hospital. It was very difficult to find a cab and I finally hitched a ride to the hospital. When I got to the hospital I was taken by a room where a man was very upset - I later learned he was driving the second car - I never talked with him. A doctor came over and told me that my sister was dead and asked if I wanted to see her. I said I did. There were people walking in the corridor where I was having the conversation with the doctor. The doctor started to walk and I followed - we went around a corner and there was a gurney with a body covered by a sheet. He pulled the sheet back exposing my sister from her shoulders to her head. Her face and mouth were badly bruised where the car had struck her. I stood right next to her, but did not touch her. There were other people in the corridor including the doctor. I stood right next to my sister. As I was standing next to her I noticed that the sound in the corridor started to change, it was as though someone was turning the sound down on a TV. It got quieter and quieter until there was no sound at all. At the same time my field of vision changed and there was nothing but my sister, and to be honest I didn't even notice the gurney anymore. At the same time as my field of vision changed everything began to get bright. It’s hard to describe, but the area about her was bright, but it was limited and it was dark and nondescript further away. It was like being in a tunnel looking out, but there were no walls. The light was all around and as you looked out it got darker. I stood there and there was no time, movement, noise nothing but the two of us and the light. We were in the middle of the light - I felt peace, no grief, no anger, just contentment and love, I did not feel the presence of my sister, but I certainly felt her love. It was as though we were together as one unit and the light held us both. I stood there forever and gradually I began to realize that I needed to come back and leave the hospital. Sound began to come back and the light faded and I realized that people were walking in the corridor. I remember the doctor asking if I was ok and I said I was and that I needed to leave. I passed by the room with the driver and did not stop. I left the hospital and went back to my mother's apartment to be with my wife and mother.

The next day the coroner called and asked that someone come and identify my sister's body. I called an older friend and asked him if he would go with me. When we got to the morgue we went downstairs into a marble hall. There again was a gurney and a sheet. The attendant pulled back the sheet and my sister was laying there with large scars and stitches from the autopsy. I panicked and without thinking I turned and ran up the stairs and out of the building. I was terrified. For many, many years I would have moments were I saw her that way. It was the yin to the yang. What I remember today is the difference of being in the hospital and being with her in the morgue. The morgue was cold sterile, foreboding, and terrifying. The hospital was peace, love, assurance and contentment. Most of all there was no feeling of "oneness" in the morgue. The hospital was the beginning, the alpha; the morgue was the end, the omega.

In 1977, at the birth of my oldest daughter, I began to experience anxiety attacks and other psychological issues (it has been described to me as PTSD). I went to a psychiatrist who treated me as a patient (I saw him once a week) for about four years - the goal being to de-twin me. This helped a lot. During my treatment I talked about my experience in the hospital, but I always saw it as my attempt to say goodbye. Recently I read a book by Greg Taylor, "Stop Worrying! There probably is an Afterlife," and I'm wondering if there may have been more to my experience than I realized. Thinking back on it, this all took place during the Vietnam War and my sister was concerned, claiming to have had dreams that if I was drafted (I was never drafted and did not serve in the military) I would be “killed by a bullet”. What with those feelings it was odd that she died before I did. Be this as it may, her message to me in a more general sense was clearly that her actual death was the alpha. I think it was made clear by the juxtaposed events and experiences that I experienced  in the hospital versus the morgue. As a shared-death experience, I can not think of any kinder gift a deceased twin could give to the surviving twin, and when I think of it in these terms it makes me shiver a bit and I have tears in in my eyes.