A hospice nurse has shared a moving sign — from the ‘death stare’ to end-of-life visions of loved ones — which she says is “beautiful” and can mean someone is nearing the end of their life.
End-of-life nurse, Julie McFadden says patients always see same ‘beautiful’ thing before death(Image: YouTube)
Death continues to be among the few subjects considered taboo – something most people prefer not to contemplate, let alone discuss.
However, one hospice nurse is committed to helping people feel less anxious about their final days so they can experience a ‘good death’, and she has revealed a poignant sign which frequently indicates someone is approaching the end of their life, describing it as “beautiful”.
End-of-life care nurse Julie McFadden, who practises in Los Angeles, has utilised her YouTube channel to outline the indicators she regularly observes which suggest death is imminent and the patient may have weeks or perhaps only days remaining. Operating as ‘Hospice Nurse Julie’ across social media, she has accumulated a remarkable 1.7 million followers on TikTok.
Julie’s objective is to tackle the anxiety surrounding death and encourage dialogue. In one of her clips, she examines what she characterises as a ‘beautiful’ sign she has frequently witnessed while caring for patients at life’s end.
She has identified two main signs in patients approaching their final moments, with the first being what she terms the ‘death stare’, reports the Daily Star.
End-of-life nurse Julie McFadden wants to remove the taboo around death(Image: hospicenursejulie/Instagram )
Those who have sat alongside a loved one during their last hours may have witnessed this themselves. Julie also attempts to clarify what genuinely occurs in the closing days of life and which indicators suggest someone is nearing the end.
In her YouTube clip, Julie says: “If you’re not familiar with the end-of-life phenomena, there’s a few things that happen at the end of life to most people.
“One of the things is called a death stare, which is when someone gets really fixated on a certain part of the room, and no matter what you do.
“You can snap your finger right in front of their face – and they will not move their gaze. Sometimes they just stare. Sometimes they will talk to someone who you don’t see. Sometimes they’ll have a big smile on their face, like they’re seeing something that’s obviously making them very happy.”
End-of-life ‘visioning’ is another phenomenon Julie frequently sees in those nearing death, describing it as ‘one of the main phenomena that we (healthcare workers) see at the end of life’.
End-of-life nurse, Julie McFadden wants people to have a “good death”(Image: hospicenursejulie/Instagram)
Julie explained: “This is when someone sees someone who has died already that they usually love and know, (they might) have conversations right in front of us with these people that we don’t see.”
During this final stage, patients may experience visions of dead relatives, potentially parents who have already passed, or perhaps former friends and loved ones who are no longer alive.
Julie recounted one particular patient’s ‘huge smile’, as though he was seeing someone or something ‘over there’ in another part of the room.
She continued: “I wanted his wife to see this because a lot of times these end-of-life phenomena can kind of give you a timeline of when this person may be dying. It usually starts happening a few weeks to a month before someone dies.”
She went on to say that ‘many people say they see many different things and it usually depends on what religion they are’. Julie highlighted the reassuring notion that those at this point are typically ‘happy and smiling’.
On occasion, ‘they don’t perceive any form of deity at all’, she further explained.
She noted that some people approaching the end of their lives have spoken of witnessing ‘beautiful clouds’ or ‘flowers’, while others have described seeing ‘Jesus or God or angels’.