Near death, seeing dead people may be neither rare nor eerie

PITTSBURGH (AP) —
Beth Roncevich's father was in his last few days of life, lying in bed in his Indiana Township home with her and her mother somberly by his side.
Though his eyes were closed while terminally ill from lung disease on that day four years ago, laughter unexpectedly emerged from Albin Langus.
"I said 'Dad, what are you laughing at?' He said, 'Oh, we're all together.' "
The bewildered Roncevich and her mother wondered who and what he was seeing. He was even giggling.

"He said, 'Everybody's together and we're all just having a wonderful time. We're having so much fun' ... and those were the last words he spoke," she recounted last week between her visits to patients of UPMC Family Hospice and Palliative Care. "I said to my mom, 'What more could we ask for than that?' Wherever he was going, he was in a good place and happy."

Her father's sense of a final party with whoever it was — she's still not sure who — occurred shortly before Roncevich became a hospice nurse. In that field, she's become accustomed to hearing of such positive encounters from her patients — or from their relatives who describe what the patients told them.

"It's always a calming experience. I have never come across an experience that it was scary," said Roncevich, 48. "Another thing they experience is that, even in an unconscious state, their arms will lift up as though taking someone's else's hand, and their mouths will move as though speaking to someone."

Full story:
https://www.indianagazette.com/news/near-death-seeing-dead-people-may-be-neither-rare-nor/article_611eedbf-2ce6-5af7-bea9-a7887c478bf7.html