In 1976 when I was 28 years old, I was very sick with what I hypothesize was Influenza/pneumonia. I had heard there was a strain going around that year that was killing more people than usual. My symptoms included: high fever, constant vomiting and diarrhea, sore throat, coughing, congestion, headache, body aches, and weakness. This had gone on for about five days.

At the time I was living on a spiritual alternative lifestyle community called The Farm in Tennessee, known for its Spiritual Midwifery. We had a “clinic” of mostly unprofessionally trained people with a country doctor who visited from time to time. The clinic sent a person to visit me who was not a medical professional. She was really a midwife in training. She was very kind, held my hand and said there was nothing they could do for me.  Therefore, I had no one who was taking care of me. Looking back, I think I was, at the least, severely dehydrated and should have been in the hospital on IVs.

One night I couldn’t sleep because I was so weak and in so much pain.  All of a sudden, there was intense whirring around my head. As I looked up, I saw two cherubic baby angels at each side of my head guiding my spirit-essence out of the top of my head.  Then I found myself up at the ceiling looking down at my still body on the bed with my husband sleeping next to me. 

It just felt so good to be out of my body. I had no more pain, no more symptoms. I felt so free. I was no longer interested in the material existence of my body because I found myself surrounded by an indescribable powerful loving presence. I was being drawn into it and it felt wonderful. There was no light, just lovingness no visuals. I was surrounded by bliss, joy and pure love. I felt like I was being sucked into this presence where there was no more ordinary consciousness and there were no more thoughts. I was no longer an individual entity or even a knowingness. I was merging into what I can only call oneness and pure love—a state hard to describe in words.

When I was merged with the love, there was no subject-object relationship—no other person or thing to love. In life we experience love as loving another person or a thing or an entity loving us. When I first felt the presence that surrounded me, there was a feeling of pure unconditional love from another thing. But when I merged with the loving presence, I felt love in a different way because I was the love. It was the most wonderful thing I have ever known.

After some time, the presence pulled me back out of oneness with love. I was feeling the love once again from this entity, rather than being one with it. And I was able to look back at the experience of being merged with it with awe.

Then the presence communicated with me wordlessly – heart to heart. It asked me telepathically, “Do you want to go on with me or go back?” With no hesitation, telepathically I replied, “I want to be with you forever.” Immediately the presence gave me a vision. I saw several dozen children looking up at the sky, waving goodbye to me and my own two little ones were standing in the front. At that time, I had a two-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son. My heart was torn and I thought, “Wait, I can’t go. How can I leave them without a mother? That would be too cruel.” And suddenly, whumph, my spirit went back into my body through the top of my head and I found myself lying back on the bed. This time, all the pain, all the suffering, the fever and sickness was gone. I was completely healed.

I was also mystified. This experience happened before I had ever heard anyone talk about near-death experiences. When I tried to explain to my friends what had happened, they didn’t understand what I was talking about or even much cared or believed me. So, I stored my treasured experience safely in the deep recesses of my heart. I could only marvel, “What was that all about?” One thing I knew, all fear of death was gone. I had an intense faith in a higher power that was formless pure love, and I knew that all things would merge into this love sooner or later.

My biggest change after the experience was that I was no longer willing to let people tell me what to do, tell me how I should be and what I should do with my life. Prior to the experience, I had been kind of wimpy and shy and worried about what people thought of me. But after this incredible experience, I realized, this is my life, it’s precious and I am going to orchestrate it using my own inner strength, with loving kindness and understanding of what I feel is right. Life is not a thing to waste.

Years afterward when I was in my earlier 40s in the early 1990s, I learned about NDEs through books and videos.  Finally, it dawned on me that what had happened to me in 1976 was an NDE. How lucky I was to have had this miraculous taste of the other side.

Throughout all the NDE stories I read or have seen on YouTube, I haven’t heard any stories of someone seeing baby angels guiding them up out of the top of their head. These cherubs had been a familiar sight to me on the murals of the old Catholic church I attended as a child. I thought perhaps God sent something comforting so I wouldn’t be afraid as I left my body through the top of my head. I also thought I was very young when I had this vision and my life was wrapped up with young babies, so why not baby angels?

Since I am now almost 78 years old, I have the benefit of looking back at my life. When I had my NDE, I was already deeply on a spiritual path. I have stayed on that path through many twists and turns including studying Shamanic teachings in the US and living in India for six years studying teachings of non-duality at the feet of a loving master. I have had a variety of miraculous experiences over the years.

And what was that vision all about—with the children that brought me back to my body? I can tell you that I raised seven children and have eight grandchildren. Also, after living in India, my husband and I ran a charity for 18 years that helped orphans, abandoned and vulnerable children around the world. We had the good fortune to help thousands of children who did not have a mother or father that could care for them. We are now retired.

I am so grateful for my taste of death and immortality. May you never fear death. The kindness of God is infinite.