There was a related grandmother (not the mother of my father or mother) of mine who lived for a good ninety-something years. She had no illnesses whatsoever, other than the ordinary problems elderly people usually face, such as walking difficulties. She was healthy. And happy.

One day, my father, mother and I went to see her. We were having a pretty normal chat when she suddenly said, “Well, I’m going to go today. It’s about time”, with a smile. And the next ten, fifteen minutes were spent with my mother trying to convince her nothing bad was going to happen to her. But she was calm and just kept smiling.

The next day, we got a telephone call saying she’d passed away in her sleep.

That’s just one story. But there’s more. There’s this story my mother told me some time back. It’s about one of her unmarried aunts.

When the aunt was in her eighties, my mother’s parents had brought her to their house and looked after her, because there had been no one else to do that. One day she’d told them she needed to go to her house. They had asked her why, and she’d told them that her time had come and that she wanted to be at her place when she breathed her last breath. So they’d taken her to her place, and that evening she’d offered flowers to a statue of Lord Buddha, done all the religious practices Buddhists do and chanted the religious verses. My mother told me, during her aunt’s stay at my mother’s place, she never chanted the verses loudly. But on this day, she’d chanted them quite loudly and finished the worshipping with great care, taking her time.

And she also passed in her sleep that night.

Now, I don’t know what to think of it. But I find it rather interesting. Amazing.

How did these two ladies know their time had come? How were they as accurate about it as that?

Can it be that Death has its own way of communicating with its victims? Or in other words, can it be that people can sense Death coming their way?

Those two are personal stories (to me). But I’ve also heard and read about incidents where the people who died, having done things before their death, that they wouldn’t have done usually. For example, there was a case about a person who kissed his wife and children goodbye (something he never did), before he left for his job. On the way he met with an accident and died.

So I went online and did some googling. I wanted to see if anyone had done any research on this or if anyone had any explanation to this. But what I found was more and more stories of people “welcoming Death”.

I read a personal experience of a person working at an elders’ home. According to that, there had been a nice old man in that home and one day he had gone to every single fellow elder and worker and said his goodbyes. Because he was ready to go. And the next morning they had found him dead.

I can go on and on with more and more stories like this. But you get the point. To me, it’s come to a point where I’m not even sure whether it’s just coincidence.

One reason I’m writing this is, my fascination over this. I’m not sure whether I want to believe there’s something more to this than that meets the eye, but at the same time I know that would sound pretty ridiculous.

Another reason is, I would like to know more. Maybe there’s no way I could, till that one day when it’s finally time for me. But who knows?