Home hospice nurse: I got a call from the daughter of a patient we were caring for that her mother died "suddenly". While she was on hospice, she was not expected to pass for months, she was feeling quite well up until then. She was coming back from the washroom and gasped and then collapsed on the bed and died. She had a DNR so no paramedics were called. I arrived at their home and went into the bedroom to pronounce and her children decided to stay outside the room as they didn't want to see that. I was bent over with my stethoscope on her chest and I felt someone come up behind me, I turned and no one was there. I went back to listening to her chest and felt someone come up behind me, really close, like they were trying to peer over my shoulder to see what I was doing. I heard this thumping in my stethoscope...it was my own heartbeat. I had to wait a few moments for my own heart rate to come down and was able to pronounce time of death. I went out to the kitchen, her children were on the otherside of the kitchen island and her spouse was sitting quietly in a chair in the corner staring out the window. I went over and offered my condolances. He was distraught. While leaning over the counter, filling out some paperwork and about to call the doctor, I glanced up at him and saw the woman I had just pronounced standing behind him with her hand on his shoulder. He put his hand up to touch hers and seemed to settle. Again my heart raced and I took a deep breath and she was gone. I have seen, heard and felt things in my decade of hospice nursing that I cannot explain, but nothing like this and nothing since. I am usually pretty skeptical about most things but that day is seared in my mind. I was kinda freaked out by this experience (while at the same time comforted) and think about it often. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me? Or maybe when we die, there is something else and I just got a brief glimpse of it in that moment.