by Amanda Ines

Created on: April 23, 2010   Last Updated: November 20, 2011

I am going to describe a very weird thing that happened the night that my father died in the hospital.

He had been suffering from lung cancer for several years and it had got to the stage where the cancer had invaded most of his body and we were told by the nurses that his body was beginning to shut down, in other words one by one his vital organs were going and so we knew that this was going to be it, this was the day that my father would leave us.

I was in a terrible state as I had never seen anyone die before and on top of it it was going to be my father who I loved more than anything else in the world and so every so often I just had to go down to stand outside the hospital entrance and have a cigarette. More often than not an aunt of mine would come down to join me as well and we would chat a bit about the state of my father. This aunt of mine was in touch with an old employee of the family who was a clairvoyant and had predicted that my father would die in June (we were at the 3rd of June), and that his mother and his brother would come to collect him and take him with them.

Later on during the early hours of the morning we both went down for another cigarette. The hospital was completely deserted as was the street outside and the only person about was the receptionist. We stayed quietly puffing on our cigarettes and no longer feeling like talking much, partly out of exhaustion and partly out of sadness when suddenly we both felt a big chill come over us and shortly after the sliding doors to the hospital opened very silently and then closed. We both looked at each other wondering what could have happened as there wasn't a soul about and we ourselves were standing well away from the doors when suddenly they opened again and then closed again once more. My aunt finally said that it had been my grandmother and my uncle who had come to fetch my father at which I didn't quite know what to reply as it all seemed a bit too mystical for me to believe at that moment in time.

But when we went inside my curiosity was too much and I went over to the receptionist to ask him whether the automatic doors were working properly as they had opened and closed on their own to which he replied that they were working perfectly and they had never had any problem with them. He added though that he had also seen them open and close on their own and wondered what could have happened.

We went back upstairs and I sat by my father's bed holding his hand for twenty minutes more before he finally took his last breath. He looked in peace at last and his death wasn't as traumatic as I had feared it would be but really peaceful and gentle. I wondered whether in fact it had been his mother and brother who had floated in through the hospital doors to take him to heaven.

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