Have you had a pet you loved so much but it died eventually and there is nothing you can do about saving him or her? Then you feel the extreme sadness after that it seems so hard to get over it. Your grief would seem so great that you would think that the only way you would be able to get over it and move on is that you would want to think you will get to see him or her again in the afterlife.
Well, great news! You certainly will see him or her again in the afterlife! So dry up those tears and just wait patiently for your turn to go. You will see them again someday.
Is this really true, you might ask? It is not just me who is saying this, but there are many who do. And these people who I am referring to are credible because they all have died before. They all have set foot in the afterlife for some time but were all also given the chance to come back to this life again. They all have had what we call ‘near-death experiences’ or NDE for short.
An NDE is an experience of an individual wherein he or she had been declared dead for some time but after a few minutes or so (sometimes, even after a day!), medical personnel were able to revive him or her. And sometimes, the person revives himself or herself without the aid of anybody.
A person can not be easily declared dead right away, even if his heart had truly stopped beating and the body had completely no pulse. Medical people would have to observe the body for a certain period of time—at most, 4-5 minutes, and that they were able to exhaust all resuscitation efforts first before they could declare the person really dead. This 4-5 minute guide has something to do with ‘the dead donor rule’ (When is ‘Dead’ Really Dead? What Happens After a Flatline?, Amanda van Beinum and Sonny Dhanani, 29 January 2021). The guidelines recommend a five-minute observation after the heart has stopped because “the longer the blood flow to the organs is restricted, the less likely they are to be suitable for donation”.
There have been a lot of cases of people being dead for more than five (5) minutes. But then, all of a sudden, they came back to life. There have been cases that after a day of being declared dead, the person suddenly woke up in the morgue in a body bag. This phenomenon is what they call the ‘Lazarus Phenomenon’ (The Lazarus Phenomenon: When the Dead Come Back to Life, Honor Whiteman, 26 May 2017).
Now, almost all of these NDE cases have somewhat similar stories told about what they saw, heard, felt, knew, and sometimes, even smelled and tasted. Many of them had the privilege of meeting and being with their deceased pets from the past. Some say, they could even completely understand their pets at that moment through telepathy. Not like how it was when they were still alive in this life. And that gave them so much joy to finally be able to understand their pets completely. To many of these NDE cases, this experience of being able to be with their pets who died in the past gave them such comfort, strength, courage, understanding, and peace in facing death after so.
One famous case of NDE with pet experience is that of John Davis. He was only in his 20s when he had the experience. He had it when he was being operated on for the first time in his life because of a bone fracture he acquired in a bike accident. Not knowing he was allergic to the type of anesthesia they gave him, he went into cardiac arrest once it was administered to him in preparation for his operation. He was out for a full six (6) minutes of his life. And while he was “dead,” he was having the time of his life touring heaven and being able to play with his pets who had died a long time ago in this life. He said that our pets who have died do, indeed, go to heaven and they await our turn to come home too. They also know if they saw you there, if that was just a private visit or a permanent stay already. And, what is more, he said, we get to understand them completely by then through telepathy. How cool is that? (John Davis—A Tour of Heaven, Grief 2 Growth, 2021. Retrieved from John Davis- A Tour of Heaven)
I know there are still a lot of skeptics out there who can not take it in for them to believe in the afterlife. They still doubt that there is a God, and they would prefer to believe they would only go to a state of nothingness once they die. This is such a sad state of mind if you would ask me. Believing in God and the afterlife does not mean you are wasting your energy on something that could be nothing after all. Actually, it’s the opposite of that view. I believe I am very much loved and that I have somewhere really nice to go to after I die. And what is even better, I believe I would get to be with my loved ones again who had gone before me. They include my pets who have crossed the rainbow bridge. I’d rather die with this state of mind than with what non-believers say. How about you?
About the Author: Mariana Burgos is a freelance artist. She is a solo parent for 14 years now because she is wife to a desaparacido. She and her daughter are animal lovers and are active in advocating not only human rights but the rights of animals as well.