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Michael Crichton –  from Travels [his autobiography]

Meanwhile, my mother had run forward and flung her arms around my father's body, and was crying and talking to him and kissing him. I was embarrassed, as if I shouldn't be witnessing this scene between them. At one point she turned to me and said, "He's so cold." But she was really in her own world, her own way of handling things, and it was remarkable for its force and directness.

She cried, she talked to him, she wiped her tears from his cheek. She was really dealing with it.  I tried to figure out why I had thought he was still here. 

I checked again: yes, I felt it. He's here. He’s hanging around this room. He's confused.

I knew that people had reported these impressions, but I was not one of those who believed that a soul stayed around a dead body, particularly following a sudden death.

So where did the feeling come from? A sensation that the room was warm. A feeling that he was hovering near the ceiling, looking down on all of us, wondering why we were here. Or was it the projection of my own difficulty accepting that my father was really dead? Because certainly I was having trouble accepting it. I kept staring at his chest, waiting for him to take a breath. I was sure he was still alive.

I knew he was in this room. I just couldn't figure out how I knew.

 Then I cried some more. Finally my mother kissed my father goodbye, said she was done. On the way out she told the undertaker that they had done a good job, that my father looked very nice.  Then we all went outside.  Tomorrow was the funeral.