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Going Home – Colm Keane

Maud, from Belfast, had an unusual experience while ill in bed with thyroid problems.

It happened in 1991.  My mother had died in 1989 and I hadn’t been well. I was still mourning for my mother. I hadn't mourned properly for her because my husband was taken into the hospital at the same time as she died. He was very ill and had a lot of things wrong. I wasn't well either with my thyroid. I didn’t know that's what it was at the time but that's what it turned out to be.

I remember my face had broken out and I had lost a massive amount of weight. I was in bed and wasn't feeling well at all. The doctor said to me, when he came into the room and saw my appearance, 'What has happened to you?' I still remember saying, 'Doctor, you know my mummy died.'  He said, 'But that was two years ago.' There's always an expectation that there will be a change after a year or so but it doesn't happen like that. That's how I always know the exact year it happened.

I was very unsure about what was wrong with me. I thought it was something more serious. We all think of cancer, don't we? I remember doing tests up in the doctor's  surgery. It was only six weeks until my son was getting married and I remember saying, 'Doctor, would you just keep me going for that length of time, until my son's wedding.'  The doctor looked at me and said, 'There is no cancer in your body.' He knew what I was thinking although I didn't say it. I thought I was going to die and I had just accepted it.  But it transpired that my thyroid was underactive and that's what was wrong.

I don't know how long I was in bed. One night I was lying there and I had a strange experience. I was sleeping at the time. Suddenly there was a very bright light. There was an amazing brightness all over. It was just as if the whole place was lit up. There also seemed to be a tunnel, which was rounded. There was no black there, not even in the tunnel.  Everything was white. I could see everything was very bright. It was as if somebody was wheeling me along that tunnel.  My body was lying on a stretcher and not a bed. I didn't see anybody doing the wheeling. They were at the head of the bed, pushing me, like you would see in a hospital. The bedclothes were white, like you would have in a hospital bed. I wasn't going fast. I was moving slowly.  It was as if I was seated up above and looking down at me being wheeled along. I was about ceiling height, not away up in the sky or anything like that. I couldn't see my face but I knew it was me or thought it was me in the bed. I really didn't have to even think about it - that was me getting wheeled along.

I could see a curtain, like a thin lace curtain, at the end. It was moving slightly, as if there was a wee wind or a draught or something. I didn't see anything beyond it but it  was like as if it was the outside. When I think of what was beyond it, to me it was just peace. But I didn't go through the curtain. Suddenly everything stopped. It just came to an end.

 I know that when I wakened up in the morning it was as if peace had come over me. It was like I had a change of mind overnight. I thought to myself, 'What am I mourning my mother for?' She had been ill for years and I felt, 'I wouldn't want her back to suffer that again.' I could never have thought that way before about my mother. All of a sudden I asked, 'What am I worrying about?' I wouldn't say I stopped mourning for my mother, as a result, but I certainly stopped worrying.

I got well again quickly after that. By the time my son was married I was quite well. I  had put on weight again. I think a lot of things changed for me after that. I don't think I ever worried the same about anything again. I also thought about what happened over the years. I remember saying about it to my son but I don't talk to other people about it. They would think something was wrong with you. 

I have often heard since about similar experiences although I never knew anything about them before what happened to me. But it definitely happened. It's fresh in my mind to this day. And that was the start. 'That was the first day I felt in any way well. It was like as if there was peace there. It changed everything.  It changed the way I thought and it changed my life.