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The Art of Dying – Drs Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick

Dilys Gannon's experience when her grandmother died conveyed a message, though she is clearly unsure whether she was truly awake or perhaps in some half-awake, half-asleep state at the time:

One night I was lying in bed when I was awakened, or at least I at first thought I had been awakened: afterwards I was not sure that I had experienced the 'happening’ when I was truly awake in the accepted sense. There came into my vision a bright light and there I saw my grandmother looking at me through a mirror. The mirror had great significance for me and for my grandmother, as she had spent many hours with me, when I was a child, looking into this mirror. She used to ask me questions about things I could see through the mirror and what significance they had.

As the light shone through and around this mirror, I saw the figure of my grandmother explaining to me that she had died, but I was not to be upset because she was extremely happy. There was an  extreme moment of peace and quiet and I felt the light surrounding me like a blanket. When I woke up, I telephoned my mother, who told me I must have been mistaken as we would have heard, if my grandmother was ill.

Later that day my aunt telephoned to say that my grandmother had died the previous night. She had not wanted to tell us about her illness, as she had hoped she would get better, and she also delayed telephoning us about the death because she was too upset to give us the news immediately.