The ringing phone roused me from a deep sleep. When I answered, the voice on the other end said, “Can you hear that?” What followed was a horrible gurgling combined with the sound of an extremely labored attempt by a person to inhale a lung full of air. It didn’t sound good. “It’s my mom,” the caller said. “She was like this when I arrived this morning. Can you come?” I could tell she was struggling to keep from crying.
I had been to the hospital to see the lady just the night previous and although she had been wide awake and cheerful, I had seen something unsettling. She was enveloped in a gray haziness.
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said.
It took about half an hour to return to the hospital. When I entered the room I immediately could see that time was short. The haziness was gone, replaced by a luminous white mist that hovered above the lady’s body. It grew in size and brightness even as I watched. A thin, slowly pulsing cord connected it to her body.
I walked over and hugged her daughter, then stepped to the side of the bed and held the lady’s hand for a moment.
“She is not going to get better, is she?” asked the daughter.
Before I could open my mouth to answer, I saw the silver cord part and the white mist slowly rise and disappear.
I whispered, “She is gone.” At the same moment the physical body ceased its attempts to breathe and grew quiet.
Another Soul had moved on to the next phase of its never-ending adventure.