0:08

Hi, my name is Phoebe Zirwic and

0:10

I'm a contributor to the New York

0:12

Times Magazine. For

0:15

this week's Sunday Read, we'll be

0:17

sharing a recent article for the

0:19

magazine about deathbed

0:21

visions, visions

0:23

that people experience as they're

0:25

dying. These

0:27

visions can begin days, weeks,

0:29

maybe even months before someone

0:32

passes away. And

0:34

they can cover a whole range of subjects, but

0:37

they tend to center on the patient's

0:39

earlier life and lived experience.

0:44

As death approaches, people will

0:46

begin to see friends and relatives, even

0:49

pets whom they loved, who

0:51

preceded them in death. They

0:53

might even hear the person speak

0:55

or smell their perfume. People

0:59

describe these deathbed visions as realer

1:01

than real, as different

1:04

from any other kinds of dreams that

1:06

they've ever had. So

1:10

this story is based on the research

1:12

by a physician named Dr. Chris Kerr,

1:14

who works at Hospice Buffalo. He

1:17

believed that these deathbed visions were

1:20

completely different from delusions or hallucinations

1:22

brought on by medication. And

1:25

so Kerr's team interviewed his patients

1:27

and their relatives. They

1:29

found that these experiences were

1:32

common among a majority of

1:34

patients, an astonishing 88%

1:36

in their first study. Dr.

1:40

Kerr often says that he

1:42

hasn't discovered anything new. He's

1:45

just reclaimed wisdom that's been

1:47

lost to modern medicine. In

1:51

the past century, death moved from

1:53

people's homes and into a hospital

1:55

setting. It became

1:58

medicalized with machines being and

2:00

doctors and nurses rushing around. And

2:04

to appreciate these end-of-life experiences,

2:07

you need a little bit of quiet

2:09

and time to just talk. Otherwise,

2:12

they might go unnoticed. I

2:16

should say, I'm not religious. I

2:19

don't have beliefs about the afterlife. Normally,

2:23

I write about topics like

2:25

mass incarceration, abortion, or the

2:27

refugee crisis. Testbed

2:30

visions are something that I'd never heard of

2:33

until I encountered it in my own

2:35

life. You'll hear about

2:37

that later on. But

2:39

after that experience, I was compelled to

2:41

report on it. Last

2:45

June, I spent about a week at

2:47

Hospice Buffalo with Dr. Kerr. I met

2:50

some of his patients or

2:52

their surviving relatives, sitting

2:55

back and letting people tell

2:57

their stories. I understand you were

2:59

seeing your mom too. She showed

3:02

up. She was waiting for you or

3:04

something, right? I was standing over

3:06

here. One

3:08

patient, Peggy Halosky, said

3:10

that she had been visited by her mother, who

3:13

was waiting for her. How long

3:15

ago did she pass? Eleven

3:18

years. Did a smile

3:20

on her face. You think you'll

3:22

be seeing her more? I will. Peggy

3:26

also saw her dog. It's

3:28

not Kasia. Here's my

3:31

one. Kasia didn't bark.

3:35

I'm in peace with everybody. I'm

3:38

handsome. I'm okay. I

3:41

know it's not time yet. I'm

3:43

not quite ready yet. But it is coming.

3:49

Dr. Kerr's patients told me that being with

3:51

and talking to their relatives about

3:53

their visions, that

3:56

it provided a kind of comfort and peace to

3:58

them. Their

4:01

relatives said that knowing that the person

4:03

they loved was not scared of what

4:06

lay ahead, of death, made

4:08

their grief much more bearable. Since

4:12

my article was published, so many

4:14

people have shared their own stories.

4:18

Some people interpret this as evidence of an

4:20

afterlife. Some is

4:22

something about the power of our inner

4:24

mind or consciousness. Others

4:27

as just love in its purest

4:29

form. Personally,

4:31

I don't want to put a label on it myself.

4:35

But the fact is, someday

4:37

we're all going to reach the end of our

4:39

own lives. And as

4:41

the research bears out, when that

4:44

does happen, people tend

4:46

to find these visions helpful or

4:49

spiritually meaningful. So

4:51

this story is an attempt

4:53

to explain them. So

4:56

here's my article, read

4:58

by Samantha Dez. Our

5:02

audio producer is Jack DeSedoro.

5:05

The original music you'll hear

5:07

was written and performed by

5:09

Aaron Esposito. Chris

5:20

Kerr was 12 when he

5:22

first observed a deathbed vision. His

5:25

memory of that summer in 1974 is

5:28

blurred, but not the sense

5:30

of mystery he felt at the bedside

5:32

of his dying father. Throughout

5:35

Kerr's childhood in Toronto, his father, a

5:37

surgeon, was too busy to spend much

5:40

time with his son, except for an

5:42

annual fishing trip they took, just the

5:44

two of them, to the Canadian wilderness.

5:48

Gaunt and weakened by cancer at

5:50

42, His father reached for

5:52

the buttons on Kerr's shirt, fiddled with them,

5:54

and said something about getting ready to catch

5:57

the plane to their cabin in the woods.

6:00

I knew intuitively I knew where

6:02

ever he was. Must be a

6:04

good place because we were going

6:06

say Kurt told me. As

6:09

he moved to touch his father, curve

6:11

felt a hand on his soldiers. A

6:14

priest had followed him into the hospital

6:16

room and was now leading him away,

6:18

telling him his father was delusional. Curse

6:22

father died early the next morning.

6:24

Current now calls what he witnessed. An

6:27

end of life as as him. His

6:31

father wasn't. Delusional. he believes his mind

6:33

was taking him to a time

6:35

and place where he and his

6:37

son could be together and the wilds

6:40

of Northern Canada. And

6:42

the priest he seals made a

6:44

mistake one that many other caregivers

6:47

make of dismissing the moment as

6:49

a break with reality as something

6:51

from which the boy required protections.

6:55

It would be more than forty years

6:57

before curve felt compelled to speak about

6:59

that evening and the hospital room. He

7:02

had followed his father. And three generations

7:04

before him and medicine and was

7:06

working at Hospice and Palliative Care

7:09

Buffalo where he was the Chief

7:11

medical Officer and conducted research on

7:13

end of Life, this ends. It

7:16

wasn't until he gave attacks talk and

7:18

twenty six team that he said the

7:20

story of his father's death. Pacing.

7:23

The stage and the sport coat he

7:25

always wears. He told the audience. My.

7:28

Point here is I didn't

7:30

choose this topic of dying.

7:32

I feel it has chosen

7:34

or followed me. He

7:36

went on. When I was

7:39

present at the bedside of the dying

7:41

I was confronted. by what I had seen

7:43

and tried so. Hard to forget from

7:45

my childhood. I. Saw

7:47

dying patients, Read saying and

7:49

calling out to mothers and fathers

7:51

and two children, many of whom

7:54

hadn't been seen for many years.

7:56

But. What was remarkable was so many

7:58

of them looked at. The

8:02

talk received millions of views and

8:04

thousands of comments, many from nurses

8:07

grateful that. Someone in the medical

8:09

field validated what they have long

8:11

understood. Others to posted

8:14

personal stories of having witnessed

8:16

loved ones visions in their

8:18

final days. For them curse

8:20

message was a kind of

8:22

confirmation of something they instinctively

8:24

knew that does that visions

8:26

are we'll can provide comfort

8:28

even heels. Past trauma that

8:30

they can in some

8:32

cases seal transcendence. That

8:35

our minds are capable of conjuring

8:37

images that help us at the

8:39

end makes sense of our lives.

8:43

Nothing encourage. Medical training prepared

8:46

him for his first. Says that

8:48

Hospice Buffalo one Saturday morning in

8:50

the Spring of Nineteen Ninety Nine.

8:53

He had earned a degree from the

8:55

Medical College of Ohio while working on

8:57

a Phd in Neurobiology. After

8:59

a residency and internal medicine,

9:01

cursed started a fellowship and

9:04

cardiology and Buffalo. To.

9:06

Earn extra money to support his wife

9:08

and two young daughters. He took a

9:10

part time job with Hospice Buffalo. Until.

9:13

Then. Kerr. Had worked, and

9:15

the conventional medical system focused on

9:18

patients who are often tethered to

9:20

machines or heavily medicated. If

9:23

say recount his vision's he had no

9:25

time to listen. But. In

9:27

a quiet of hospice Curve found

9:29

himself in the. Presence of something

9:31

he hadn't seen since. His father's

9:33

death. Patients. Who

9:35

spoke of people and places visible

9:37

only to them? So.

9:40

Just like with my father,

9:42

there's just this feeling of

9:44

reverence of something that wasn't

9:46

understood, but certainly sounds. He

9:49

says. During one

9:51

of his says career was checking on

9:53

a seventy year old woman named Mary

9:55

who's grown children had gathered in her

9:57

room drinking wine to lighten the mood.

10:01

Without. Warning. Curve remembers Mary

10:03

sign up in her bad and crossed

10:05

her arms at her test. Danny.

10:08

See queued. Kissing and coddling

10:10

a baby. Only seated see.

10:13

At. First, her children were confused. There

10:16

was no Danny and the family.

10:18

No baby in their mother's arms.

10:20

But. They could sense that whatever

10:23

their mother was experiencing. Brought her

10:25

a sense of calm. Her.

10:27

Later learned that long before her

10:29

four children were born, Mary lost

10:32

a baby in childbirth. See.

10:34

Never spoke about with her children. But.

10:36

Now see was through this

10:38

and seemingly addressing that loss.

10:52

In observing Mary's final days

10:54

at Hospice Curve found his

10:56

calling. I was disillusioned

10:58

by the assembly line nature

11:00

of Madison Curse hold me.

11:02

This felt like a more humane

11:05

and dignified model of tear.

11:08

He quit cardiology to work full

11:10

time at the bedside of dying

11:12

patients. Many of them

11:14

described divisions. That drew from

11:16

their lives and seems to

11:18

hold meaning unlike hallucinations resulting

11:21

from medication or delusional incoherent

11:23

thinking which can also occur

11:25

at the end of. But

11:28

curl couldn't persuade other doctors,

11:30

even young residents making the

11:32

rounds with him at hospice

11:34

of their value they wanted

11:36

scientific. At

11:41

the time, only a handful of

11:43

published medical studies had documented deathbed

11:46

visions, and they largely relied on

11:48

second hand. Reports from doctors

11:50

and other caregivers, rather

11:52

than accounts from patients

11:54

themselves. On. A flight home

11:57

from a conference, Kerr outlined a study

11:59

of his own. And and twenty

12:01

turn a research fellow and banners signed

12:03

on to conduct it with him. Like

12:06

Per Banners had a family

12:08

member who before his death

12:11

experienced visions. A. Grandfather who

12:13

imagines himself in a train

12:15

station with his brother's. List.

12:17

Study wasn't designed to answer whole

12:20

these visions. Differ neurologically

12:22

from hallucinations or delusions.

12:25

Rather, Caruso his role as

12:27

chronicler of his patients' experiences.

12:30

Borrowing. From Social Science research

12:32

methods, Curb Business and their

12:34

colleagues base their study on

12:36

daily interviews with patience and.

12:38

The twenty to bed inpatient unit

12:41

as a hospice campus in the

12:43

hope of capturing the frequency and

12:45

varied subject matter. Of their visions.

12:48

Patients. Were screened to ensure that

12:50

they were lucid and not in

12:52

a confused or delirious states. The

12:55

Research published and Twenty Fourteen And

12:57

the Journal of Palliative Medicine. Found.

13:00

That visions are far more common

13:02

and frequent. Than other researchers

13:04

have found, with an astonishing eighty

13:07

eight percent of patients reporting at

13:09

least one vision. Later.

13:11

Studies in Japan, India, Sweden,

13:14

and Australia confirm that Visions

13:16

are clones. The percentages range

13:19

from about twenty to eighty percent.

13:22

Though a majority of these studies

13:24

rely on interviews with caregivers and

13:26

not. Pieces. In.

13:28

The last ten years, Kerr has

13:31

hired a permanent research team who

13:33

expanded. The studies to include interviews

13:35

with patients. Receiving hospice care

13:37

at home and with their

13:39

families. deepening. The researchers' understanding

13:42

of the variety and profundity.

13:44

Of these visions. They can

13:46

occur while patients are asleep or

13:49

fully conscious. Dead family

13:51

members figure most prominently, and

13:53

by contrast, visions involving religious

13:56

themes are exceedingly rare. Patients.

13:59

Often really. live seminal moments from

14:01

their lives, including joyful experiences

14:04

of falling in love and

14:06

painful ones of rejection. Some

14:09

dream of the unresolved tasks of

14:11

daily life, like paying bills or

14:14

raising children. Visions also

14:16

entail past or imagined journeys,

14:19

whether long car trips or short

14:21

walks to school. Regardless

14:24

of the subject matter, the

14:26

visions, patients say, feel real

14:29

and entirely unique compared

14:31

with anything else they've ever experienced.

14:34

They can begin days, even weeks

14:36

before death. Most

14:38

significant, as people near the

14:41

end of their lives, the frequency

14:43

of visions increases, further

14:45

centering on deceased people or

14:47

pets. It is

14:50

these final visions that provide patients

14:52

and their loved ones with

14:54

profound meaning and solace. Kerr's

14:58

latest research is focused on the

15:00

emotional transformation he has often observed

15:03

in patients who experience such visions.

15:06

The first in this series of studies, published

15:08

in 2019, measured

15:10

psychological and spiritual growth among

15:13

two groups of hospice patients,

15:16

those who had visions and a control group

15:18

of those who did not. Patients

15:21

raided their agreement with statements,

15:23

including, I changed my

15:25

priorities about what is important in life,

15:27

or I have a better

15:30

understanding of spiritual matters. Those

15:32

who experienced end-of-life visions agreed

15:35

more strongly with those statements,

15:38

suggesting that the visions

15:40

sparked interchange, even at the

15:42

end of life. It's

15:44

the most remarkable of our studies, Kerr

15:46

told me. It highlights the

15:49

paradox of dying, that while

15:51

there is physical deterioration, they

15:53

are growing and finding meaning. It

15:56

highlights what patients are telling us, that

15:59

they are being... put back together. In

16:04

the many conversations Kerr and I

16:06

have had over the past year,

16:09

the contradiction between medicine's demand for

16:11

evidence and the ineffable quality of

16:13

his patients' experiences came up repeatedly.

16:17

He was first struck by this tension

16:19

about a year before the publication of

16:21

his first study, during a visit

16:23

with a World War II veteran

16:25

named John, who was tormented throughout

16:28

his life by nightmares that took him

16:30

back to the beaches of Normandy on

16:32

D-Day. John had

16:34

been part of a rescue mission to

16:36

bring wounded soldiers to England by ship

16:38

and leave those too far gone to

16:41

die. The

16:43

nightmares continued through his dying

16:45

days, until he dreamed

16:47

of being discharged from the army.

16:50

In a second dream, a fallen soldier

16:53

appeared to John to tell him that

16:55

his comrades would soon come to get him.

16:58

The nightmares ended after that. Kerr

17:02

has been nagged ever since by

17:04

the inadequacy of science and

17:06

of language to fully capture the

17:08

mysteries of the mind. We

17:11

were so caught up in trying

17:13

to quantify and give structure to

17:15

something so deeply spiritual and really

17:18

we were just bystanders, witnesses

17:20

to this, he says. It

17:23

feels a little small to be filling in

17:25

forms when you're looking at a 90-something-year-old

17:28

veteran who is back in time 70

17:30

years having an experience you

17:32

can't even understand. When

17:35

Kerr talks about his research

17:37

at conferences, nurses tend to nod their

17:40

heads in approval. Doctors roll

17:42

their eyes in disbelief. He

17:45

finds that skeptics often understand the

17:47

research best when they watch

17:49

taped interviews with patients. What's

17:52

striking about this footage, which dates back to

17:54

Kerr's early work in 2008, is

17:57

not so much the content of the visions. but

18:00

rather the patient's demeanor. There's

18:03

an absence of fear, Kerr

18:06

says. A teenage girl's

18:08

face lights up as she describes a

18:10

dream in which she and her deceased

18:12

aunt were in a castle playing with

18:14

Barbie dolls. A man dying

18:16

of cancer talks about his wife, who

18:19

died several years earlier, and who

18:21

comes to him in his dreams, always

18:23

in blue. She waves,

18:25

she smiles, that's it. But

18:28

in the moment, he seems to be

18:31

transported to another time or place.

18:34

Kerr has often observed that in the

18:36

very end, dying people lose

18:38

interest in the activities that preoccupied

18:41

them in life and turn

18:43

toward those they love. As

18:45

to why, Kerr can only

18:47

speculate. In his 2020 book,

18:50

Death is But a Dream, he

18:52

concludes that the love his patients

18:54

find in dying often brings them

18:56

to a place that some call

18:58

enlightenment and others call God. "'Time

19:01

seems to vanish,' he told me.

19:04

"'The people who loved you well,

19:06

secured you, "'and contributed to who

19:09

you are "'are still accessible at

19:11

a spiritual "'and psychological level.'"

19:15

That was the case with Connor O'Neill, who

19:17

died at the age of 10 in 2022, and

19:21

whose parents Kerr and I visited in their home.

19:24

They told us that just two days

19:27

before his death, their son called out

19:29

the name of a family friend who,

19:31

without the boy's knowledge, had just

19:33

died. "'Do you know where

19:35

you are?' Connor's mother asked.

19:38

"'Heaven,' the boy replied." Connor

19:41

had barely spoken in days or moved

19:43

without help. But in that moment,

19:45

he sat up under his own strength and

19:48

threw his arms around her neck. "'Mommy,

19:50

I love you,' he said." Kerr's

19:54

research finds that such moments,

19:56

which transcend the often painful

19:59

physical decline, in the last days

20:01

of life, help parents like

20:03

the O'Neill's and other relatives grieve

20:06

even unfathomable loss. I

20:09

don't know where I would be without that closure

20:11

or that gift that was given to us, Connor's

20:14

father told us. It's

20:16

hard enough with it. As

20:18

Kerr explains, it's the

20:21

difference between being wounded and soothed.

20:39

In June, I visited the adult daughter

20:41

of a patient who died at home

20:43

just days earlier. We

20:45

sat in her mother's living room, looking out

20:47

on the patio and bird feeders that had

20:49

given the mother so much joy. Three

20:53

days before her mother's death, the

20:55

daughter was straightening up the room when her

20:57

mother began to speak more lucidly than

20:59

she had in days. The

21:01

daughter crawled into her mother's bed,

21:03

held her hand and listened. Her

21:06

mother first spoke to the daughter's father, whom

21:09

she could see in the far corner of

21:11

the room, handsome as ever. She

21:14

then started speaking with her second husband,

21:16

visible only to her, yet

21:18

real enough for the daughter to ask whether

21:20

he was smoking his pipe. Can't

21:22

you smell it? Her mother replied.

21:26

Even in the retelling, the moment felt

21:28

sacred. I will never,

21:31

ever forget it, the daughter told me.

21:34

It was so beautiful. I

21:37

also met one of Bannus' patients,

21:39

Peggy Halosky, who had enrolled

21:41

in hospice for home care services

21:44

just days earlier, after doctors at

21:46

the cancer hospital in Buffalo found

21:48

blood clots throughout her body, a

21:50

sign that the year-long treatment had stopped

21:53

working. It was time

21:55

for her husband, Steven, to keep her comfortable

21:57

at home with their two greyhounds.

22:00

Steven led Bannus and me to the family

22:02

room where Peggy lay on the couch. Bannus

22:05

knelt on the floor, checked her patient's

22:08

catheter, reduced her prescriptions, so there were

22:10

fewer pills for her to swallow every

22:12

day, and ordered a numbing

22:14

cream for pain in her tailbone. She

22:17

also asked about her visions. The

22:20

nurse on call that weekend witnessed Peggy

22:22

speaking with her dead mother. "'She

22:25

was standing over here,' Peggy told

22:27

Bannus, gesturing toward the corner of the

22:29

room. "'Was that the

22:31

only time you saw her?' Bannus asked.

22:34

"'So far. Do you think you'll

22:37

be seeing her more?' "'I will.

22:39

I will, considering what's going

22:41

on.' Peggy

22:43

sank deeper into the couch and closed

22:45

her eyes, recounting another visit

22:47

from the dead, this time

22:49

by the first greyhound she and

22:52

Steven adopted. "'I'm

22:54

at peace with everybody. "'I'm

22:56

happy,' she said. "'It's

22:58

not time yet. "'I know it's

23:00

not time, but it's coming.'" When

23:05

my mother, Chloe Zierwick, was dying in

23:07

2018, I

23:09

had never heard of end-of-life visions. I

23:12

was acting on intuition when her caregiver

23:14

started telling me about what we

23:16

were then calling hallucinations. Mom

23:19

was 95 and

23:21

living in her Hudson Valley home under

23:23

hospice care with lung disease and congestive

23:25

heart failure, barely able to leave her

23:28

bed. The hospice doctor

23:30

prescribed an opioid for pain and

23:32

put her on antipsychotic and

23:35

anti-anxiety medicines to tame the

23:37

so-called hallucinations he worried were

23:39

preventing her from sleeping. It

23:42

is possible that some of

23:44

these medications caused mom's visions,

23:47

but as Kerr has explained,

23:49

drug-induced hallucinations do not rule

23:51

out naturally occurring visions. They

23:54

can coexist. In

23:56

my mother's case, I inherently understood

23:58

that her imaginary... life was something

24:00

to honor. I knew what

24:03

medicine induced hallucinations looked and felt

24:05

like. About 10 years

24:07

before her death, mom fell and

24:09

injured her spine. Doctors

24:11

in the local hospital put her on an

24:13

opioid to control the pain, which

24:16

left her acting like a different person.

24:18

There were spiders crawling on the hospital

24:21

wall, she said. She must took her

24:23

roommate's bed for a train platform. Worse,

24:27

she denied that I loved her or

24:29

ever did. Once we

24:31

took her off the medicine, the hallucinations

24:33

vanished. The visions

24:36

she was having at the end of

24:38

her life were entirely different. They

24:40

were connected to the long life she

24:42

had led and brought a deep sense

24:45

of comfort and delight. You

24:47

know, for the first time in

24:49

my life, I have no worries,

24:52

she told me. I

24:54

remember feeling a weight lift. After

24:56

more than a decade of failing health,

24:59

she seemed to have found a sense of peace.

25:03

The day before her death, as

25:05

her breathing became more labored, mom

25:07

made an announcement. I

25:09

have a new leader, she said. Who

25:12

is that? I asked. Mark,

25:15

he's going to take me to the other side. She

25:18

was speaking of my husband alive

25:20

and well back home in North Carolina.

25:24

That's great, mom, except that I

25:26

need him here with me. I

25:28

replied. Do you think he can do both?

25:31

Oh yes, he's very capable. That

25:35

evening, mom was struggling again to

25:37

breathe. I'm thinking of

25:39

the next world, she said, and

25:41

of my husband who would lead

25:43

her there. The caregiver on

25:45

duty for the night and I sat at

25:47

her bedside as mom's oxygen level fell from

25:49

68 to 63 to 52. And

25:54

kept dropping until she died the next

25:57

morning. My Mother

25:59

was not a woman. The brave person in

26:01

the traditional sense of the word.

26:03

She was afraid of snakes, the

26:05

subway platform, and any hints of

26:07

pain. But she faced

26:09

her death. Confidence that a man

26:11

who loves her daughter would guide

26:13

her to whatever. Way I had. To

26:17

think it will happen to you. She asked

26:19

me at one point about her dreaming. Maybe

26:22

it's genetic I replied, not knowing

26:25

as I do now that these

26:27

experiences are part of what may

26:29

await us all.