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The Wisdom of Near Death Experiences - Dr Peny Sartori

My fiance Steven and I had been together for 24 years. We were childhood sweethearts. I knew we would only be together for a specific length of time, due to something that happened (a premonition) when we first met. A week before the crash, I was very ill with pneumonia, as a result of my chemotherapy treatment. As I recovered, I 'sensed' death and assumed it was for me. I started to get my things in order but the day later, it began to move and the sense of death moved to Steven. I disregarded it but it wouldn't leave.

The night before the crash, I had the dream. I dreamed I was in a beautiful house and walked into a room to the right of the hall. Inside the room was actually the altar of my local church. Steven was standing next to me but it was as though he was in a dream state and didn't play any part in the dream. To the left of the altar was ‘God’ (I know that sounds insane but it's true). He was human up to his neck, and his head was a mass of moving grey and silver scribbles - how I saw ‘God’ when I was much younger.

‘God’ told me that, as I knew, Steven would die before me and it was time. I protested and asked if I could go instead - I had cancer, so it made sense. He refused, saying I had more to do here and was very stern with me. He seemed very disappointed in me - which I now have more understanding of.

‘God’ said Steven would die the next day, or the following, depending on what happened in his life. He said it was ok as, every time I was in this dream state, time would go quickly and He said I already knew there was an afterlife where Steven was going.

At the back of the room, a door opened and a beautiful blue sky was reflected through. This made me feel better and I agreed to let Steven go, on the understanding I’d see him soon and he’d be close to me all the time. I knew I wouldn't be allowed to tell Steven he’d die and I didn't. I now wonder whether I could have stopped him dying had I told him but I don't think I could have done.

They showed me how he'd die. I felt a rush and felt as though I dropped to the floor. I remember feeling offended they’d shown me, as I knew he’d die in a helicopter crash anyway. I feel, had he not done, it would have been in a car crash but he would have died somehow.  I think this is where free will comes from. The next morning when I saw him, it was very hard to let him go.  I took a plastic bag he’d been holding into the hospital with me (Id been home for the weekend) just to have something he'd recently been in contact with. He died around noon that day.

I know this may sound unbelievable. It's true and I can't explain it but I've gained such strength from it. I feel there's a reason I'm prepared for these big things in my life. I hope you believe me. I'm a published children’s author, as I've already mentioned, and I could come up with something far more dramatic than this if I wanted to lie about the afterlife! I really hope these experiences do help people to come to terms with death and perhaps see that, as far as I'm concerned, there’s definitely an afterlife because I've seen it. I personally think it's something everyone can experience for themselves and I wonder if it’s because I was so close to death myself that it was as vivid and prophetic as it was. I really do mean it when I say I wouldn't be here but for that dream about Steven – there’s absolutely no way I could have lived without him had I not been prepared for his death and been promised I'd see him again.

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Liverpool Echo - Author Shelley E Parker on battling cancer and losing her fiance five weeks after she was diagnosed with cancer - 06:00, 7 March 2012  -  Janet Tansley

SHELLEY E Parker strained her ears to hear every last footstep of her pilot fiance as he walked away from her hospital bed, certain it was the last time she would ever hear them.  “Steven was six feet four and used to wear a standard pilot shoe which made a really clunky noise,” she says.

“That morning he hugged me and told me he loved me before walking away. I can remember struggling to make out the very last point at which I could hear those shoes.”  Hours later, in that same hospital bed, Shelley watched the breaking news on TV about a helicopter pilot who had crashed and died.  “I knew it was Steven.”

If author Shelley sounds complacent about the death of her ‘soulmate’, it is merely the acceptance of a series of events which during the last few years have made her teenage fantasy novels seem uneventful.  But it has instilled in her an incredible courage and a vow to strive forward - not least to make Steven proud.  And as she celebrates the publication of her first book since Steven’s death and her all-clear from cancer, she says: “It would have been arrogant of me to have given up. Events that happen to you do define the person you are.”

Five weeks after Shelley was diagnosed with cancer Steven was killed - after a dream she had had about events that would follow.  “I know it sounds strange and maybe it was because I was so close to death, but I dreamt about Steven’s death.   “That’s why when I heard those footsteps that morning I knew I wouldn’t hear them again, and when the crash in Poulton-le-Fylde came on the TV I knew it was him. I recognised the helicopter and just waited for the police to come.”  Shelley is convinced she coped only because the two cataclysmic events happened together.

“If Steven had died when I had been well the idea of a world without him would have been incomprehensible. “But when he died I was still in shock from the cancer diagnosis and every bit of energy I had was used up by that. Whenever I pictured Steven I saw him in front of me, but after he was killed I imagined him standing at my right shoulder, looking after me.”  All this helped Shelley, who has been given the all clear, continue the second book in the Allapatria series, Maloc. It will be published on Kindle on March 15 before going into print.

Although Shelley had originally come up with the idea for the series, Steven helped to develop it and created characters: “I had to keep writing it because that’s what he would have wanted.”  She is also following her ambition to become a psychotherapist which, again, Steven encouraged: “I am also a buddy for the lymphoma society and I am becoming involved with Macmillan nurses.”  Adds Shelley: “I have started the third novel, and that’s nice because the book in which I keep my notes for the series has got ideas which were completely Steven’s.

“It’s like he’s still around, supporting me.”