Was it her soul?

Hagar

Right, here's the story.

My mother was on her deathbed in hospital, lung cancer. Myself my sister and my father were sitting around the bed as she ebbed away. I saw what looked like a steamy mist rise from her body and form a small "cloud" above her. I looked over to my father, his head was down on his arms on the bed and was unaware of the event. I looked at my sister, her mouth was hanging open, She looked at me and said "Jesus" in shock. The "cloud" shot back down into the body. My mother lived on for almost 24 hours. When I spoke to my sister later her description of what she saw was exactly what I saw.

I don't, or won't if you would rather say, believe in a god.
What did I see? Was it my mother's soul/ spirit leaving her body?

I have posted here rather than in Spirituality because I want a non-believer's view of what I saw. I don't want the automatic faith based response that I'm sure to get elsewhere. Thanks.

pH

I was at my father's bedside last year when he died, and knowing how shocked and stressed I felt at the time, I wouldn't take anything I thought I saw or heard at the time as evidence for anything.

Being with someone you love as they die is an extremely traumatic experience, if it comforts you to believe that your mother has gone to a better place and that you have some 'evidence' that some part of her (her soul) has continued on then I don't see anything wrong with that per se.

But, put it this way, millions of people die every year on this planet, and a visible spirit leaving the body is not a repeatable observable occurrence, I certainly didn't see anything leave my father's body, his breathing merely became more and more shallow until it finally stopped.

With the greatest respect, unless you are claiming something special either for your mother's soul or your own ability to see souls then I think it would be wisest to accept that either you observed a natural phenomenon or due to the obvious stressfulness of the situation saw something that wasn't really there.

Zombrex

I would imagine you saw a small cloud of water vapor above your mothers body, nothing more nothing less. The body can do a lot of funny things, such as rapid fluctuations in temperature when put under the strain of an illness.

I am sorry for your loss, losing someone to cancer is hard

Zillah

That sure is weird.

Not much else to be said without further evidence. I thought the soul was invisible anyway?

biko

Condolences Hagar. It could have been something like vapour but also it may have been the soul. I've seen people die (worked in ICU) and never seen anything like that nor heard anyone there describing a similar experience.

Atheism and agnosticism does not rule out the possibility of a soul, it's more the christian god stuff that is a bit dodgy (I'm a layman here so might be wrong)

I'm atheist on the basis of that it seems illogical with a god. However there might be a "soul", we are still learning new things about the human body all the time. Just because we cannot see it does not means it's not there.

Dades

If I'd seen what you did Hagar, I'd be asking a lot of questions too.
Especially if your sister saw the same thing. Very strange.

My natural inclination would be towards a scientific explanation, but I'll say this: there sure is a lot of stuff we don't know.

leaba

I was at my dad's side when he died, as were the rest of the family, and I can confirm that there was nothing like what you described.

Surely a soul leaving the body would either be a mist rising from the body or it wouldn't. Why would it happen for your mother and not for other people.

You asked for an opinion, so mine would be either it was there and was some kind of natural occurance or one of you imagined something and convinced the other person that they saw something too.

Hagar

Thanks for the responses and indeed the condolences. It was some time ago so I can talk about it without the burden of emotion, but again my thanks.

I have been at other deathbeds and never observed the phenomena before or since. I can easily accept natural explanations for natural events so I'm not trying to convince anyone that I saw something spiritual or whatever. I wasn't a believer then so I would have had no need to bolster my faith with any talk of souls.

The thing is both of us acknowledeged to each other what we saw at the time. The shock of what she saw was evident on my sister's face even as we watched it. We were sitting on opposite side of the bed so a trick-of-the-light wouldn't really cover it as we had two totally opposite viewpoints. The fact that the "cloud" re-entered my mother and she lived on for some hours is the bit that's hard to explain away.

I have on other occassions sensed things that were imminent or happening nearby. Once I purposely detoured on the way home with my wife and child in the car. She asked me why and I said "There is death up there". On the news later that evening we heard that there was an accident about a half a mile from where I turned off the main road and four people died at the scene. Another time I woke up and told my wife that I saw a plane crashing and many people dying. She told me to go back to sleep, that it was only a dream. It was the morning of the 11th September 2001. I'm not claiming to be a psychic. I could be mildly I suppose, but I have no control over it. Hence my puzzlement at what I saw with my mother, there was no distress or anything like that. I was as if she was dying but sensed my sister's distress and held on for a while for her sake.

Hard to take I know but it's all I can come up with.

leaba

I'm in two minds whether to reply to this, or just leave it. I'm of the opinion that it's not really the right forum for this discussion and also that you're entitled to think whatever you like about this very personal experience.

Having said that, by posting your experience in this particular forum, I presume your looking for responses from skeptics, critical thinkers or however you might describe the likely inhabitant here.

You're conclusion that your mother was passing but held on because of your sisters distress sounds a bit strange to me. I think that, in this extremely stressful time, holding on is only going to extend the difficult experience.

I don't really know what it is you're looking to talk about. The elaboration into the other strange stuff that has happened is just confusing, not to mention the comment about not being a believer then.

Asiaprod

Hagar wrote:

I was as if she was dying but sensed my sister's distress and held on for a while for her sake.

Sorry to hear of your loss Hagar. All I can say is that there is much we do not know about being human. There are many stories of strange events happening around the death of a loved one. I had similar things when my sister died of cancer. I knew moment before it happened (I live 5,000 miles away). I felt her behind me speaking to me. My other sister died on an operating theater and viviidly rememberes stepping out of her body and looking down on the scean, before being pulled back to life as she says it. There is no real way to explain what happened, the important bit for me wold be how it effected you and your sister and what you both felt.

Owen

Lost my Dad and watched him go too mate, so I know what that's like. I will go with the water vapour conclusion too, a soul is just too fairytale like for me to believe in. We're told it exists, but no one can show us it, or how exactly it transfers your consciousness from millions of neurons, into a non-corporeal form, or how it travels, or how it knows it's way to Heaven (Which is the ultimate fairytale IMHO).

Hagar

leaba wrote:

I'm in two minds whether to reply to this, or just leave it. I'm of the opinion that it's not really the right forum for this discussion and also that you're entitled to think whatever you like about this very personal experience.

Having said that, by posting your experience in this particular forum, I presume your looking for responses from skeptics, critical thinkers or however you might describe the likely inhabitant here.

There probably isn't a right forum for this at all, I don't really know where it fits. I think I can predict the responses I would have had in the theist forums and that wasn't what I was looking for. I was looking for a more detached, non-religious response.

leaba wrote:

You're conclusion that your mother was passing but held on because of your sisters distress sounds a bit strange to me. I think that, in this extremely stressful time, holding on is only going to extend the difficult experience.

It is the only answer I can come up with. I'm sure we all know of someone who was seriously ill but manages to live on just long enough to see the birth of a granchild or a child's wedding and then just "let's go". I think it's possible for someone to draw on all their strength to hold on to life for a short time for a specific reason. My mother was in a morpheine induced coma at the time so she wouldn't have been aware at any conscious level of our feelings at the time. So how can I explain it?

leaba wrote:

I don't really know what it is you're looking to talk about. The elaboration into the other strange stuff that has happened is just confusing, not to mention the comment about not being a believer then.

The other stuff is equally confusing to me. I just mentioned it to get it off my chest I suppose. I don't think I ever mentioned the incidents to anybody else other than my wife. I don't want to be thought of as a crackpot.

Like many people in Ireland I inherited a belief set from my parents, I was trying to say that I had long rejected those beliefs before my mother's death so I wasn't clinging to a god and a belief in heaven at the time to get me through it. As far as I was concerned I was watching my mother just fading away to nothingness. This made the cloud thing all the more perplexing as I wasn't hoping or expecting to see something like that.

As a topic I don't think there's really all that much scope for discussion.
I suppose I was just hoping for a rational answer to an irrational event.

carryboy

In as much as i believe in souls and stuff like that, our world is really full of wonderful happenings we'd only come to know when we believe.

leaba

I think your looking at it from a strange angle...I kind of see it the other way around. When you believe you attach strangeness to a lot of things.

I remember on the late late show, two aul one's were on talking about their experiences with angels. One of them describes how she was at her lowest point when the angel's came and helped her out. I'm always perplexed at how she rationalised this...a more logical conclusion might of been that she was approaching a breakdown in a time of extreme stress and finally crossed the line.

The highlight of that particular interview was when one announced that "it's quantum physics, Pat!".

Dades

Hagar wrote:

I would have had in the theist forums and that wasn't what I was looking for. I was looking for a more detached, non-religious response.

A good call - I believe the opinions you get here to be varied and objective, if slightly sceptical.

For the record I've no problem believing in ESP, or something similar. Right now the jurys out as I've never experienced it first or second hand, but I listen to stories like yours with interest. I wouldn't label it as "paranormal" either, but as something we haven't even started to understand.

Zillah

leaba wrote:

The highlight of that particular interview was when one announced that "it's quantum physics, Pat!".

Its not that its an ignorant comment...its that its so ignorant that I want to put my fingers into my eyes, through to my brain...and swirl them around...

busted flush

you know something it could have been her soul!
it could be why not no one knows , im very sorry for your loss. if it was her soul and no one can be sure what it was you need th ask yourself how it makes you feel. deep inside!

Zillah

busted flush wrote:

you know something it could have been her soul!
it could be why not

lol

Imagine a lazy New York jew saying the above.

toiletduck

My mother often tells a similar story of when my Grandad died (she says she could see his final breath), but given the fact that she had been at his bedside for a long time and had watched the deterioration over weeks I don't think it's surprising that the brain can come up with this.

As for the fact that your sister saw it aswell, I don't know why that is but I'd love to understand why