The Story of My Great Loss

Chapter One My Great Loss

November 13, 2016, was the worst day of my life! It was my third postoperative day following knee surgery, the day any nurse will tell you is one of the most difficult. But that paled in comparison to what happened next. That was the day I experienced my great loss. My adult daughter, my only child, died unexpectedly that day, and it felt like a large part of me died along with her.

The Story of My Great Loss Eight years prior to her death, my daughter was brutally raped and robbed. She developed post-traumatic stress syndrome with agoraphobia, severe anxiety, and depression in the aftermath of this event. Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder in which individuals avoid situations and places where they might feel trapped. This condition became so difficult for my daughter that she became afraid to leave the house. This condition can last for several years or even be lifelong.

Feeling helpless, I brought my daughter home to live with me again. She was under the care of a psychiatrist and heavily medicated to control

her symptoms. My heart went out to her, as she seemed so vulnerable and broken. Just about my every waking moment became dedicated to helping her recover.

It is not that I quit my practice in spiritual hypnotherapy and suspended all my other activities. No, I continued just as before, or so it must have looked from the outside. However, her well-being became the focus of my world. That was the basis upon which I planned my days. When things were not going well for her, nothing was right for me either. My main responsibility became helping her recover. I continued with my own endeavors, but my heart was not in them.

Things would start to get better and then they would get worse. She broke her leg and had asthma attacks, dental problems, and all sorts of minor health issues. She became so fearful that she was afraid to answer the door. We spent several birthdays and holidays in a hospital emergency room. I became more and more desperate to find a way to help her. I felt that as her mother, it was my responsibility to do so, and that with my professional background, I should be able to manage it. My anxiety rose, as there seemed to be no long-term improvement.

Meanwhile, I was trying to keep up with everything else. This put stress on my relationship with my long-term romantic partner, and I was exhausted and discouraged a good bit of the time. My daughter was depressed nearly all the time, and I tried so hard to raise her spirits.

Things were at their lowest point when she met a boyfriend on the internet. They established a relationship through online chats and became quite close. For the first time since her brutal attack, she was willing to go out with someone, and they started seeing each other. The relationship was chaotic and unstable. She experienced extraordinary highs and lows for the short time that it lasted. She started taking extra anxiety medication during her low periods, and I became alarmed.

She finally could take no more and ended the relationship. Afterward she was even more depressed and seemed to retreat into herself. I feared that she was becoming addicted to her prescription medications. I just kept trying even harder.

It was a difficult summer, but she seemed to finally make some significant progress. She started thinking about her future, and my hopes soared. We worked together to reduce her dependence on her anxiety medications, and she made solid progress in doing so. She seemed so much better that I felt comfortable having the knee surgery I had been putting off. She started making plans for the future and even started looking for a job.

We talked about my upcoming surgery, and she shared her plans for cooking and taking care of me when I returned home. I was heartened by her enthusiasm and looked forward to spending this special time with her after my hospitalization, when our caretaking roles would be reversed. As I prepared for my surgery, I remember thinking that a brighter future was on the way.

She spent two nights with me in the hospital after my surgery and seemed more relaxed than I had seen her in a long time. She joked about making sure I did all the exercises. I was able to walk with her to the elevator as she left that morning, and the last thing we said to each other was “I love you.”

I was not able to reach her later that day, but I assumed that she was sleeping. I became a little worried when she still did not respond the following morning. I was about to call my partner and ask him to stop and check on her on his way in to visit me when I experienced a frightening event.

I had been resting after breakfast before my scheduled physical therapy session when I started feeling weak, dizzy, and slightly nauseated. The situation worsened and I was about to call for assistance when I realized that I was too weak to move. Even breathing became an effort, and I had a sudden awareness that I was dying. Interestingly, I felt no apprehension, but rather just a peaceful sense of inevitability.

I am not sure how long this went on, because there was a sense of timelessness, but it probably was no more than fifteen to twenty minutes. Then suddenly all the symptoms went away as quickly as they had

come on, and I felt normal again. The nurse examined me and checked my vital signs, and all were normal. We were puzzled by this event.

As soon as my partner arrived, I sent him to check on my daughter. He did not return for what seemed like a long time, and again I became worried. I was shocked when he returned with the news that he had found her lying on her bed, unresponsive. He immediately called for assistance, and she was pronounced dead at the scene. I do not really remember much about the next few hours, as I went into shock.

At first, we had no idea what had happened to my daughter. Since her inhaler had been found next to her, we were told tentatively that the cause of death might be related to her asthma, but an autopsy was to be performed. The coroner estimated the time of death to be between 9:00 and 11:00 that morning. I knew right away exactly when it had happened, as I realized instinctively that it had been the cause of my unsettling episode that morning. I had experienced a type of shared death experience, although I did not realize what it was as it was happening.

Shared death experiences have traditionally been described as profound spiritual experiences of onlookers by the side of the dying person. They might report seeing the dying person’s spirit leaving the body and they may accompany the dying person partway toward the light.1 William Peters, founder and executive director of Shared Crossing Project, is studying a wide range of experiences that individuals may have before, during, and after the death of another.2 The physical experience that I had—in a different location and without the knowledge that a death was occurring—is reported less often and is a very interesting phenomenon.

1. Raymond Moody Jr., with Paul Perry, Glimpses of Eternity (New York: Guideposts, 2010). 2. William Peters, “What Are Shared Crossings?,” Shared Crossing Project, accessed

August 7, 2021, https://www.sharedcrossing.com/shared-crossings.html.