From Quora:+
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How long after death does it take for the spirit to leave the body?
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“As a nurse I’ve seen a lot of death. Most were peaceful. Some saw angels or family come to get them shortly before vitals stopped. Only once did I see the opposite. A rather hateful, demanding, well-to-do woman who snapped her fingers at nurses and family alike fell into a coma. Hadn’t moved or spoken in three days. Her heart was failing.++
“As she breathed her last she sat straight up with a look of horror and yelled, ‘Oh god, no!’ Fell back and died. A fellow nurse and I looked at each other and the hair on our arms stood up. I pray I never see that again.”
–Beth Anne Puckett, retired
“When my grandmother passed, it was on a Sunday morning in hospice, with the entire family squeezed in that room and the rest of that wing of the building. Her pastor was there and we’d just finished her last church service here on earth, and we sang every one of her favorite hymns. She’d been in a comatose state for almost a week, waiting for Sunday—for church and her family before she was ready to go anywhere.
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“I swear she smiled from the very first notes of her favorite songs, and just as we finished Onward Christian Soldiers, she sat straight up in her bed, opened her eyes, and had the most beatific smile on her face, like she was looking in the face of God, then laid back and blew out her last breath.
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“My cousin and I were across the hall, sitting on a bench crying, of course, and the instant her head touched the pillow, both of us felt her arms around us and smelled the lilac perfume she loved so much but hadn’t worn since her arrival a week earlier, and we both clearly heard her humming like she did when she’d be rocking a baby to sleep—something every single one of us had heard from the first time she held us.
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“And we both looked at each other with the same look of shock and knew she was gone, but her last thoughts were that she loved us and she was okay, and we would be too; that she wasn’t going far; and that she’d be there with or without a body so we didn’t need to be sad anymore.
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“Then she was gone, and so were our tears. I have no doubt that death does not stop the soul; it gives it wings and rapture.”
—Danny Davis
“Once, during my nursing career, I witnessed a blinding white spirit exit the body from the solar plexus region, shooting rapidly straight up and out the ceiling. If you want me to describe the width of the light, I will approximate six inches. The vital signs had ceased (no breathing or heartbeat) approximately ten minutes prior to the departure, which occurred as I was alone bathing and prepping the body for the mortician.
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“The light was so unworldly-bright that my young vision remained blurry for three hours afterwards.
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“All the nurses were aware of this phenomenon. We speak reassuringly to the dying, before, during, and after bodily death, because we know biological death is a process, not an ‘alive one moment, dead the next’ scenario.+
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“So, if you are at the bedside of a dying person, speak out loud to them. Tell them they are loved, safe, and transitioning. Tell them you will be fine, and it’s okay for them to go. Tell them they were a wonderful friend, parent, or relative. Say they will never be forgotten. Tell them to seek the Light. Pray or sing, play music or read poems. Touch them, kiss them. Continue to do so after the vitals have slowed, then stopped.+
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“This does facilitate their peaceful transition.”
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—Linda Johnson, former RN at Veterans Affairs Medical Center (2005–2022)
“My mom was 57 years in the year 2000. She was placed on life support because she couldn’t breathe on her own from having a flu bug. She was in ICU for three weeks.
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“My mom was a prayer warrior for so many. At the end of three weeks, we decided to take her off of life support since she was a DNR/DNI [Do Not Resuscitate/Do Not Intubate] to begin with, but doctors thought she would make it. My mom was in God’s Hands. The day before mom was taken off life support, I was in the room with her.
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“The two cousins came into the room to visit. All three of us watched my mom open her eyes. She tried to sit up with the tube in her mouth. She looked at my one cousin and tried to smile. She looked at the other cousin and then looked at me as if she was going to tear up.
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“My cousin said, ‘Look, Sue is glowing.’ My mom had this white and yellowish glowing light all around her. Then, bam, she fell back into the mattress and it was as if she was…GONE! It was like her spirit left her body and her body was nothing but a shell. The shell of her body continued to try to survive after the tube was pulled. She hiccupped a lot, burped, and her body was shutting down, yet I believe her soul was gone. The shell of her body stopped breathing after two days. Then she was declared dead at 3:33 a.m.”
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—Nadine Suzi
“I was in the room with my husband in the hospital. He had been in a coma for several days. The nurse and I were talking and I looked over at my husband. I heard him say he loved me and I said it back to him. Then I realized neither of us had said a word. I was looking at him in shock when I saw a mist rise from his mouth.
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“After the mist drifted up and left his mouth, I heard what sounded like he was swallowing his tongue. A doctor had walked in next to me and said the same thing. So I would say his spirit left at his last breath before the awful sound of his tongue. I have never told anyone of this because I figure no one would believe me. But I do believe a hundred percent of what I just stated.”
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–Sharon Rasmussen, Bachelors in BBA General & Real Estate, Northwood University
“I think it depends on the person who owns the body. When my mother-in-law passed, I got there maybe ten minutes later. She was still in her body but soon drifted over to the corner/ceiling for another half hour or so. She had known she was dying and was at peace with it.
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“When my husband passed, he fought to stay alive so hard, I was later told that medically, he should have passed five ti seven days before, but with his willpower, he refused to leave.
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“When he died, there was that one last second of consciousness where he made eye contact with me and it looked like he knew he couldn’t fight it anymore, and then he was gone, like a whoosh, didn’t stick around, which surprised me as he’d been so determined to stay living, well past the point his body was able to sustain him.
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“Kinda makes me wonder if it was just circumstance, or if you have a certain amount of time with your body after death, and if my husband’s quick exit was because he was already on borrowed time.”
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–Harley Brock
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[resources: books on the afterlife]
