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Do people know that they're going to die/ not much time left?


Steve Cavanaugh

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Steve Cavanaugh

Hi guys. I know this question may seem a bit weird but I was just wondering if people know that they don't have much time left before they die.

Take my example for instance. My fiancee passed away in February 2016 and she had been acting quite odd since November 2015 or so. She was not a very expressive person in general. She didn't like PDA. She didn't like talking too much or expressing her feelings blatantly, even to me, despite the fact that we'd been together 13 years. She was a very guarded, reserved and should I say cold person? She was quite cold. She was very bubbly with her limited circle of friends but still not an open book.

But from November 2015, she had become really emotional. She would weep at the slightest of things. We had watched Titanic atleast a 100 times together. It was like "our" movie and she had never cried. But when we watched it in November and the scene came when Jack dies, she was inconsolable. I was so shocked. I didn't know what to do. She never cries for movies and in general, she isn't a very weepy person. 

Secondly, we were used to go long number of days without being with each other due to our respective careers but she was totally cool with it. She was a total career-woman but those days, if she had to go outside Sydney or I had to go, she would get so emotional. I was totally not getting what was happening. And the thing which shocked me the most was her behavior on New Year's. Our gang of friends had attended this party and we had this ritual of hugging each other first as the clock struck 12. It was always a happy hug. But in 2016, she again cried while hugging me saying, "I hope we have many more New Years together." And I brushed it off saying, "Don't be stupid. We'll even celebrate year 2090 together."

 

So here is my question. Do people really somehow get to know before dying that they're going to die?? This has been bothering me for a while now and I thought I ask you guys...

 

Please do let me know..

 

 

 

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Steven---- I believe some people have a *knowing* that their time is getting close. When I reflect back on my husband's last several months, I believe he knew. I just wish he had talked to me more. But, he was seeing to things. If something needed to be renovated, fixed, he was on top of it. He wanted to come with me when I had errands. He spent a lot more time just watching me. If I was cooking, washing dishes, he was there, keeping me company. We have 2 televisions in the house. If I was watching a program he didn't like, he'd come in the room and watch part of it with me. Just the daily, mundane things of life and he wanted to be with me more. I didn't put too much thought into it at the time. We had been in the process of retiring from our trucking business. He had to quit because his legs were not working well for him. He was more physically active in the business than I was. I just assumed his dependency on me was part of the adjustment. i welcomed it. I loved how he wanted to spend more time with me. If only I had known the real reason , I would have clung onto him every millisecond.

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I've written about some of this before, but I do believe there is more out there than earthly life. Perhaps our beloveds did have a subconscious hint that something was wrong. It's safe to say that none of them knew 100% consciously that they were dying, because I bet most of them would have been in the ER immediately if they had any reason to think consciously that death was coming, or was so close. 

Some say that the "other side" isn't limited by the forward movement of time. So perhaps, maybe, the future spirit of our loves came to them in a subconscious way? We can't perceive these things directly, but our behavior can be influenced. I also noticed that my girlfriend was more affectionate, more loving, things like that, near the end, for the past few months at least. But she had no conscious knowledge her death was coming. That doesn't mean though that maybe at some deep subconscious level she didn't know something was up.

Here's something interesting to think about. If a man walked up to you on the street and said he was a messenger for God (or even God himself) and tried to give you some information, how seriously would you take that person? Even if the information was very specific, even people who are spiritual seem to tend to disbelieve.

"Hello, I am God, and I am here to warn you that your girl is going to die in one week, so you may want to try to prevent that."

What would you do? Even if you believed it, would your beloved? 

That's part of why I do believe, because I also know that most people would never believe it if it were directly shoved in their faces. So maybe spirits know this and try to be more subtle? But at the same time we still don't listen, I had premonitions of my girlfriend's death and ignored them, chalking them up to my mind being foolish. Maybe if we all, as a society, as a people, embraced the idea that there may actually be more out there THAT IS ACTUALLY REACHABLE, maybe we would live our lives more differently. Instead, as humans, we seem to have a ton of internal defense mechanisms that keep us focused entirely on the physical world we live in. Animals have repeatedly demonstrated an extrasensory perception, and even though we can sometimes see the effects of this firsthand we still try to explain it away. 

It's no comfort and it hurts, but maybe we can try to think that the last few months of bliss we did have were the final gift our loved ones could give us. Even if they didn't know up front they were dying, they did know to cherish our love and be good to us, and let us be good to them. My girlfriend has the privilege of having left this world in love and having been loved. She has the honor of being able to say she was with the one she loved until she died. I'm just sad I don't get that same honor.

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Steven---Forgive me, I had gotten distracted with the question you were wondering about.  I am sorry for your loss. Your fiancee obviously meant the world to you. You are grieving, just as we all are. ( And our brains don't function like they used to either). Sadly, we have questions and there will never be adequate answers. Prayers of peace and comfort to you.

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I had premonitions as well prior to my husband's passing. I would always dream of fire and as the days were closer, I'd see fire as soon as I shut my eyes before even sleeping. Exactly the night before, I shut my eyes to ready myself to sleep, I seen his shadow leaving his body. His shadow was violently shivering and at a lost. It was just pacing back and forth not knowing where to go. I opened my eyes up and just shrugged it off. I should have believed in those visions.

I also had that eerie feeling that his soul/spiritual being knew time was near from his unusual behaviors. He would talk like he was really leaving somewhere for a long time. He'd write things saying "my last dinner" or "our last night" and I'd say to him that's not a good omen to stop writing it's his last something. And no matter how I offered explanations on other treatment/clinical trial options that were out of his home town, he'd find an excuse to turn it down. He was born and raised in NC. I had this feeling that if he was to really die, his soul wants to rest in his hometown that he loves so much. 

fzald, thank you so much for putting your thoughts into words. It helps me un-maze my own thoughts. 

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Steven,

I am sorry for the loss of your fiance. You pose a good question.  My husband and I were at the hospital the day before he died and upon leaving, I needed to go the restroom.  He waited for me in a wheelchair; we often used a wheelchair for him when visiting the hospital so he wouldn't tire himself out; he had CHF.   When I returned to him, he had this profound loving look on his face that I had not witness before and I thought, wow, he looks so peaceful and loving.  The next morning, he was gone. I wished I had asked him this thoughts then, but hinds sight is twenty twenty.   All I do know is that I'll never forget that look he gave me - I look I perceived him saying he loved me with all his heart.

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I think some know they're going to die, they get things in order, tell their loved ones something that makes them wonder later on.  Others, I don't think so, they get blindsided.  I don't know why some would know and some would not but some seem to have extra sensory perception.

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Steven,

I don't know for sure.  I think in many cases people do have a sixth sense about it, and behavior changes.  I don't think Christine knew, but we were fortunate in that there seemed to be a lot of coincidental things that led up to Christmas.  I have told people on here before that when Christine and I first started dating she told me she just wanted to live long enough to see her daughter graduate from college.  Her health was poor before we met, and she said it again often throughout our relationship when she would have life threatening situations like surgeries.  Her daughter graduated on the 21st, so we made it by 4 days.

I never took off around Christmas.  I always let families at my work who had young children take off.  I had the day of Christmas off, and that was always enough for Christine myself, and our children who were older.  This year, for some unknown reason I took off the week before Christmas, for the first time in 20 years.  We spent the entire week together, and were able to express our love frequently throughout.

Because I was off work, on the Tuesday evening before our daughter graduated I was able to take Christine out for a wonderful date to the Kennedy Center to see Wicked.  I gave her her big Christmas present, a pair of diamond earrings early so that she could wear them.  My Mother gave her a beautiful family heirloom fur coat as well that she wore to the event.  We were not wealthy, comfortable financially, but definitely not rich.  But for one day, she got to go out and be the Princess she truly was.

I don't know if all of these things were the universe giving us what it could before the end, or if people sense it.  I do know there are a lot of coincidences.  It might be just human nature trying to find meaning and resulting in a divine fallacy, but I think that then comes down to your interpretation of faith.  Even if it is possible that these things occurred "on their own", that doesn't mean that there wasn't some form of spiritual or supernatural occurrence, it simply means that maybe the world is set up this way so that things like that do occur.  Anyway, I don't think there are any hard and fast answers, or the headlines would be different than they are, but I have seen enough to at least continue to hope that we all keep our eyes open for the improbable,

Herc

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The last day I casement my love alive, she hugged me and kissed me and said she would see me next weekend. She Le she left the office I started having my premonitions about what would happen if I never saw her again.

It turned out she forgot something, and a few minutes later she came back in to get the item she forgot. 

I hugged and kissed her again. I told her I loved her again. I told her I would miss her. It was this second time that she said "I'll miss you too, but it'll only be a week and I'll be back." 

I still had that horrible thought after she left the second time, that sense of what if I never see her again.

But I did get to see her again that day. I did get to say goodbye once more. I just did not accept that it might be forever, I didn't interpret that meaning. But sometimes now when I think about it, I think of her forgetting something and coming back to give me another kiss as a final gift. One more time.

Of course I did speak to her through the weekend, so that would not be the last time I would ever talk to her. But it would be the last time I saw her in person.

She did not have a conscious sense that she was dying. But maybe spiritually she did know? Maybe her coming back was "divine order", an intangible impulse she felt to come back and see me once more...

I miss her so so terribly. Almost 2 months in, and I still don't know how to go on without her...

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