The airplane bounced down on the runway. Eureka’s small terminal was brimming with people, and Elmo assured me that he would be waiting there at noon when the plane landed. My only contact with him had been two phone conversations the week before; neither of us had thought to ask what the other looked like. Walking off the plane, I scanned the people and sensed that he was not there. I picked up my suitcase, pushed through the crowd and moved outside of the terminal. Benches lined the entrance-way; I chose one near the grass, sat down and waited.

A week earlier, I had received a phone call from a new client, Elmo Cordova, asking me to send his sick father, Peter, a distant healing. My doctorate degree is in a specialized area of alternative healing called Intuition Medicine, and Elmo was open to most alternative healing modalities. But he was not certain that he believed in energy healing and especially not at a distance.

Prompted by a friend who had a positive experience in an energy healing session, he was contacting me as his last alternative. Peter was in the hospital in critical condition suffering from cirrhosis of the liver and complications stemming from that disease. He was going into his second week of a coma. The doctors, nurses and his priest gave little hope of recovery. Elmo did not accept that his father was ready to die. His question to me was, “Can you help my father?” I replied that I would do what I could to help Peter.

I began by sending Peter a distant healing. I intuitively sensed the colors in his aura were bleeding together, which is often a pattern of immune-system dysfunction. He also held a strong and vivid image of his daughter in his space-he wanted to talk to his daughter. I later phoned Elmo and told him about the information that I sensed. I asked, “Does your father have a daughter?” “Yes,” Elmo replied, “Heidi, my sister, is very close to my father but she lives far away from Eureka.” His uncertainty about my practice began to diminish as I talked about my perception of Peter and the distance energy work that I had facilitated. I asked if it would be possible for me to visit his father in the hospital and continue the energy work.

A short, dark-haired man in his 30s jumped out of a car and anxiously looked around the airport. I picked up my bag and walked toward him with a greeting, “Hello.” In reply, Elmo said, “I am sorry about the delay.”

He hurried me to his car and we began the drive to his home. Elmo was both nervous and excited about my arrival. “The visiting hours at the hospital are 3pm to 6pm so we can see my father then.” We would go to his home now. As he drove through the town, he pointed out the sites; his family had lived here for several generations and had watched the town grow into a city.

He steered the car past the downtown area and into the suburbs. The Cordova house was in the middle of a tree-lined, quiet neighborhood. The door to the house opened and Peter’s wife coldly greeted me and showed me to the guest room. I knew I had met my first obstacle at the front door.

After I unpacked, a light lunch was set out and Elmo, Mrs. Cordova and I sat down together. As we ate, Elmo talked about Peter being a jovial person who had worked hard all his life so that his family could live well and in comfort. His disease had taken away his humor and work ethic and replaced it with a sick body. Mrs. Cordova’s story was a bit different, she was Peter’s second wife and their communication was not very good. Last year they divorced, but decided that she would continue living in his house. Here was the family dichotomy: Peter had been living with a loving son and an angry ex-wife, both concerned in their own way that Peter recover and be with them again.

St. Joseph Hospital was like most hospitals-a place where sick people rent beds in hope that the miracle cure could be bought within those rooms. I sat at the edge of Peter’s bed and watched Elmo talk to his father. He was in a heavy coma and I sensed that his spirit was partially disconnected from his body.

As Elmo talked soothingly to his father I sensed Peter’s spirit move closer to his body. Peter was 83 years old with a frail body which felt like it held very little life force. I spiritually greeted Peter’s spirit and communicated to him telepathically. His spirit responded by showing me images of information that communicated that he was not willing to come back into a pain-filled, sick body, yet he had a strong desire to talk to his family. I energetically began to work on his system, holding the intention of clearing the way for his spirit to reenter his body so that he might return to consciousness.

For two hours, Elmo sat silently in the room and watched me work. Later that evening, we came back to check on Peter’s condition. He was still in a coma but Elmo noticed a difference-there was a serene look on his face. Elmo picked up his father’s hand, gently stroked it and turned to me asking, “Will he live?” He looked at me with apologies in his eyes for asking the ultimate question. I responded, “I opened the door for him to return to this body; it is his choice now to enter or leave.”

Sunday in the hospital is the time that visitors put on a good-face with rose-colored glasses and bring loved ones flowers and rays of hope. Father and son slowly walked down the hall and Elmo looked like the rock of Gibraltar as he held onto Peter’s arm. During the night, Peter had awakened out of his coma. Peter was talking with a slow, raspy voice and he had difficulty speaking as pain in his body would interrupt his words. “Where are Heidi and my grandchildren? Tell them to come visit me.” Finally able to speak, he was asking the question that I had intuitively sensed in my spiritual communication with him.

When I returned back home, I received periodic phone calls keeping me informed of Peter’s progress. Two days after I left Eureka, Peter’s pain subsided and his humor returned. He was moved into a rest home where he was nicknamed the old jokester. Heidi and her children came to visit.

Spring passed into a warm summer morning when the phone rang with an apologetic tone. Elmo’s voice was calm as he spoke-Peter had died peacefully the day before and Elmo felt that his father had made a conscious choice to die.? There was a long pause, and I felt that he wanted to say more. I asked Elmo if he was present when his father died. “Yes. And you know something happened; it was brief, but I did…I mean…I think I did see a kind of vision.” I asked him to continue. “When my father took his last breath and died, the whole room lit up with a luminous light and I saw white angels around him. I thought that I imagined it-but now, describing it to you- I know it was real. The vision was of a gift. Peter received the gift of a peaceful death.”

In Closing: The passageway of death is like the passageway of birth: Souls transverse the light in a spiritual transmutation process. Not many of us have a conscious memory of our birth. For those of us whose spiritual practice includes preparation for a conscious death, the gift of holding sacred space for another’s death initiation is a potent gift. I thank all the souls who have allowed me to witness their gift of a conscious death.

Francesca McCartney, PhD, is founder and president of the Academy of Intuition Medicine  & Energy Medicine University in Northern California, USA www.intuitionmedicine.org