The very moment my mother took her last breath I was on the phone with the hospice nurse, but I was unable to talk. Just 10 minutes prior, I witnessed a miracle right there in her apartment. As she lay on the hospital bed hospice had set up for her, labored in her breathing, I held her hand and spoke softly to her.

By this time we had spent three days in shock at the events that had taken place. There were so many signs that my mother was going to the other side and then coming back to us. But now, she was basically unresponsive, her eyes firmly shut, though occasionally would make a sound like, “hm-mm,” almost like an affirmative grunt.

“Mom, don’t they have your gingerbread house done yet?” I asked her. She always said she would live in one, even if she had to wait until she was in heaven, she thought they were so cute.

“Hm-mm,” she said.

As I held her hand, I looked up quickly. Did she just respond affirmatively to my question? According to the nurses that often visited, she hadn’t had a blood
pressure for over 24 hours at this point. They were surprised that she was still alive at all. One nurse explained that sometimes people hang on because there
is someone they still need to have visit.

“Is there anyone else you need to see before you go?” I asked.

“Mm-mm,” she said but this time it sounded like a “no.”

Still a bit in disbelief, I couldn’t believe she was responding at the appropriate times to me. It was about 3:20 a.m. I was tired. I hated seeing her laying there, even though they said she wasn’t suffering, we kept her on morphine to ensure there wasn’t
any pain. I told her that it was okay for her to go, that I understood she had to go be with God and her family that had passed on-that I was okay with it.

As I prayed I looked up and saw a tiny fluorescent pink light on the bridge of her nose.
I blinked, blinked, blinked, but it didn’t go away. I looked around, the only light in the room was a little lamp on low. Where was this pink light reflecting from, I thought.

As I looked at her face, the light grew. It was the most beautiful brilliant purple-pink-blue light I had ever seen.
The light covered her face, it was fluid as if it were a glowing ball of energy, outlined in an iridescent purple-colored ring.

What is going on? I thought. My husband and my sister were sleeping nearby, I thought to wake them, even shook the bed they fell asleep on, but it didn’t work and it all happened so fast. I tried to talk but all I could do was focus on this luminescent ball of light floating between her and me.

It was then I realized, without question, that I too can see spiritual lights.

“I see you, Mom, I see your spirit,” was all I could manage to mutter.

“It’s beautiful.”

Moments before that, I had seen a white light above and to the left of her head, but I didn’t think anything of it. I just thought I was tired, in fact, it hardly crossed
my mind that it happened. In retrospect, I believe that I saw an angel come to take my mom to the other side one last time.

And on her way out, she had showed me her spirit—the most beautiful light I have ever seen; the most beautiful gift I’ve been given. Tears drenched my cheeks, it wasn’t sadness I was feeling but a complete feeling of exhilaration. She was giving me the proof I had asked for-that her suffering was not in vain.

My entire life she had told me about angels and lights and Jesus, and I dismissed most of it because I am the type of person, like most, that needs to see it to believe it.

I have no choice but to believe it now. She proved it to me like she always said she would. And that wasn’t the end of it.

See Part 4 in this four-part series in our March 11 edition.

Contact Paula at paulaparisot@gmail.com.