Standing just outside the window of my third floor Intensive Care Unit (ICU) window, the Angel of Death peered through the window at me, leering, waiting, lurking, watching, waiting, for the bell tolled for me. I looked deeply under its hood, for a face that wasn’t there. Nothing. Blackness. I looked towards the glass door of the ICU unit and looked back. Now, the Angel of Death was no longer outside the window, it was inside my room, standing in the alcove, back to the glass, tall, looming, sniffling, towering and leaning in my direction, no eyes to be seen, no face. The fear overtook me, heart racing, all I could do was stare at the area that should have housed a face, a skeleton, something, but it was just black, a void, a nothingness, as my heart pounded in my ears, fear griping me, unable to call out to the nurses just across the hall, unable to move my hand to the call button a few inches away, utterly afraid of what stood approximately ten feet away, destined for me. Breaking the stare, I looked at the nurse’s station and the door, nothing. No one saw what I did. When I looked back, the Angel of Death stood next to the bed, next to the head of the bed, for Satan had come for me. All of the death, the evil in my life, every dirty deed I had ever done had caught up with me. Never mind prayer, asking for forgiveness, repentance and salvation, all of that was for not, as death has come for me in the form of the Angel of Death, Satan, and he was next to my bed, to whisk me away, for my dark deeds. Or, was he?
The Grim Reaper aka The Angel of Death is the embodiment of our ambivalent view of death as the human species struggles to put death into a tangible form, hence the shadow figure known as Angel of Death. It is said that when Eve touched the Tree of Knowledge she realized or perceived the Angel of Death, Satan. Eve thought to herself, “I shall die, and God will create another wife for Adam”. Along with her shame, Eve knew death, something she had not known before. The Angel of Death is common among religions, including Islam, which is part of the reason the world of science is so unwilling to accept the world of the paranormal as fact based.
Questions remain as to who the Angel of Death is. Depending upon one’s faith, the answer varies and if one has no religious affinity at all, then the answer swings even more widely. Culturally there are just as many answers and questions raised from this simple question: Who is the Angel of Death? Do angels comfort the dying? Do they escort the dying to Heaven? Do they escort those who die to Hell? Do angels not show up at all and leave you to walk the earth in limbo, ghosts, to torment the living? Is it some combination of all of this?
With death comes the concept of “Near Death Awareness” for those who are suffering from a lingering illness, or complications from a major surgery, like I did (On multiple occasions). Knowing that one is going to die is both comforting, in that a sense of peace comes over you, allowing you to close the book on your life and a sense of foreboding, in that one must live his or past transgressions and reconcile in his or her heart the measure of the balance of their life. Prior to my visit from the Angel of Death, my surgeon came to visit me at a time when the morphine had failed to work, I was hallucinating and in a level of pain I had never been in, seeing things come out of the walls. I was attempting to get out of the bed to kill the Al Qaeda troops trying to kill me. I was seeing apparitions of dead Al Qaeda, coming for me, as my surgeon explained to my son and I that I wouldn’t make it through the night, I continued to fight of the apparitions. He sedated me and asked my son to explain my hallucinations. My son did not. Suffice it to say, during the middle of night, when my escort came, I knew for whom the bell tolled. I had experienced my near-death awareness.
With the Angel of Death standing at the head of my bed, I knew the bell tolled for me. My escort had arrived, yet I was not yet ready to depart for Heaven or Hell. I had made a deal with God decades earlier, to be his vengeful striking hammer against all things unholy. I had not let God down. I was not about to be let down by God. Panicked I hit the call button and pulled the red lead off of my chest. When the crash team hit the door the angel vanished. The team worked on me and ensured I was fine. Panicked I made sure death was gone. Two days later I was released from ICU and sent home from the hospital to die. Once again, I did not.
This story is not about me, it is about my escort, the shadow creature, the Angel of Death who had come for me and left empty handed. It was not the first time he had come for me and it won’t be the last. I was not ready to then. I was not ready to go the other times. I shall not be ready when it is my time. I was born naked, screaming and covered in someone else’s blood. I intend to die that way.
Bill Turner, Pastor – The Apparition Mission
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