I was thrilled to see that Angel Studios deemed a documentary about near-death experiences as a vital message to humanity. Bless their collective hearts working as one!
I rented this documentary because, well, I'm obsessed with NDEs. It all began when I was 16....
I was a late in life baby, #7 (the twins were stillborn), so I was technically #5. When I was an adolescent, my father had a heart attack and it changed the path of our family's destiny. The cold weather made his angina worse and the upkeep of our estate with his extremely important job that involved traveling the world putting in alcoholic rehab programs for governments and private sectors, meant he needed to slow down. He took my mom and I from Northern Virginia to Arizona to show us a warm life in a dry desert. We agreed to move there because, well, we wanted him to stay with us.
It was a year and a half later when I was 16 that father had a heart attack in the kitchen. Paramedics attended him, but had to announced he had no more vital signs, he had passed. That didn't keep these trained heroes from using paddles and bringing him back over 4 minutes later.
As they buckled dad onto a gurney, he smiled and his face looked smooth and happy like a child, all stress gone. He said, "I was at a fjord. Mama and papa were there and Tante Wahlborg. There were colors that don't exist here, flowers that don't exist here." He smiled dreamily.
My father was from Norway and his family was long gone and Tante Wahlborg was his favorite.
The paramedics wheeled him through the family room toward the front door, but dad made them stop. He motioned for me. I leaned over and he whispered, "that was the real world. This one is fake."
We visited my father in the hospital for a few days as he underwent a catheterization. We came home one night all excited that his vital signs were better. I went to bed and fell asleep with exhaustion.
I awakened an hour or so later to someone tugging on my big toe. I looked up in the darkened room and saw my father's silhouette. My first thought was, "they released him from the hospital."
The phone rang and as I reached for it, he dissolved into the darkness. The call was the hospital urging us to come back. As we drove through red lights on empty streets to get there, I was confused. Why were we going there? Dad was home!
We arrived at the hospital and father was in his bed, sheet neatly tucked under his arms, and all the monitoring instruments were no longer there. The doctor took us into a room to tell us he had passed.
At this time in my life, I was doubting my Methodist upbringing and the concept of religion. I went to so many friend's different churches. Nothing seemed to click. I thought of it as a huge snakeoil business. I talked to God and Jesus daily, but never thought I needed a stranger to interpret the Bible or my connection with the Divine.
This NDE experience, was completely life changing in the most poetic way. Growing up, father traveled the world. I worried his plane would go down as he had near-misses.
My mom told him, "Sten, she has school in the morning, don't wake her up to let her know you got home."
So, father would come into my room and pull on my big toe in a subtle way to let me know he arrived without engaging conversation and fully awakening me.
As my father accepted his entrance into the next world, he did let his last child know that he arrived at his destination.
Nothing for me would ever be the same. I found God and not through a pulpet or a minister, but from a passion to love and comfort, to follow good examples, to do good and mean well. All of this because I absolutely knew and had proof we meet up with our loved ones after the next birthing, a voyage we must do alone and an accountability we must own.
"After Life" - Reviewed
Angel Studios is truly a blessing. I went into this documentary (rented it on Amazon Prime) thinking it was another documentary about NDEs. I have seen a zillion as well as interviews on YouTube as the features of the NDE experience intrigue me.
Imagine if you were a twin in a womb and one twin left the womb and was able to come back and try to describe the birthing process, the bright light, and all the love and joy at your arrival, not to mention full vision, independent breathing, temperature, sounds, air flowing instead of fluid around your skin....
As my sister was dying of cancer, I helped her through the birth process, reframing her lonely entry to this life and that she must do this voyage alone as well, but there is love to catch her on the other side and freedom from pain and struggles. The kindest thing you can do is review the ways in which this dying loved one has influenced your life and the connection that will not be severed for them, but that it may be harder for you in this world to recognize their presence. I promised my sister, every time there was a thunderstorm or I was swimming or eating crab, I would feel her with me.
Some beautiful quotes from those who experienced it -
"I realized I wasn't my body."
"I could see a 360 view, details with the senses we don't have here, clarity of vision close up and in the distance."
"Colors that don't exist here."
"I can't be dead, because I never felt so alive!"
Interestingly, doctors were working on a patient and had him hooked up to watch his brain waves and unknowingly, he was about to die. As he died, they observed gamma oscillations in the brain that are associated with memories became active. Some would say this was the life review, but it does seem to be missing out on other critical components to NDEs, light, family visitations, traveling instaneously just by thought, seeing life within all the blades of grass, etc.
It was hard not to cry several times during the viewing and I am a tough cookie when it comes to sentiment, but it struck a note with me. It wasn't a sad one, it was one of exquisite awareness I really am a spirit in a meat suit.
I left the viewing of this documentary feeling as if I myself had an NDE and nothing will ever be the same. It was another level of awakening since my father's passing.
And, as one character said, "all we need is love."
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