Dying experiences?

In my dying moments I lived my life over again. 

Every scene, every act, passed before me, as vividly as if written on my brain with living light. 

Not a friend whom I had known in earlier or later life was forgotten. 

I saw, as I sank with my wife folded to my heart, my mother and father. The former lifted me out of the wave with a strength, which I can at this moment feel, and I have no recollection of suffering.

From the moment that I knew the waves would engulf us, I had no sensation of fear, cold or suffocation. I did not hear the waves break. I parted with that which was my body, and with my wife still in my arms, followed my mother whither she led me.

The first sad thought was for my dear brother. This my mother saw and felt, and at once said—Your brother will soon be with you! 

From that moment sorrow seemed to fade away, and I sat down to look about upon the scene through which I had so recently passed. 

I felt solicitude for my fellow passengers—looked for them and saw them being lifted out of the waves in precisely the same manner that your strong arm, nerved by love, would lift your drowning child from the great waves, which would swallow him up. 

For a time this appeared so real, that had it not have been for the presence of those whom I knew to be dead, I should have believed myself acting as rescuer with the spirits.

I write plainly to you, hoping that you will send words of comfort to those who imagine that their friends suffered mortal agony in drowning. 

There was a fulfilment, of that glorious triumph of faith, and the shadow of death became an illumination, which enabled so many to say that death's waves were swallowed up in victory, which love had brought to light in the ministry of angels and spirits.

Death's waves were swallowed up in victory.

I need not tell you the greetings, which awaited me when the many whom you and I knew and loved welcomed me to the realms of the life immortal. 

Not having been sick or suffering, I was ready at once to accept facts and to move forward to the attractions, which if on earth's plane have the power to charm away sorrow, how much more enchanting here where the scene has changed so quickly, so gloriously, that we do not murmur at the haste, nor think that it is disappointment or accident that summoned us unceremoniously hither!

The shadow of death became an illumination.

I am aware that many will ask that if we could be helped to pass out of the body without pain, why could the accident not have been prevented?

The collision was inevitable. 

There are conditions of sight, particularly on the ocean when the water will seem to possess a power of deception almost marvellous and past belief. 

—Rufus W. Peckham in Spirit