Rosemary Thornton's Near-Death Experience: Finding Peace After Tragedy

The Shower Decision

At 59,

Then came the cancer diagnosis. Stage two. Twenty-nine months after his death.

[She remembers her reaction](/video/aI-tACF9LFM?t=49" class="text-blue-600 dark:text-blue-400 hover:underline">Rosemary Thornton: "I thought you know God I asked you heal me or let me go and I meant quickly not through some prolonged disease process I just couldn't believe it I thought you know haven't I been tortured long enough can we have this end now."

The biopsy was supposed to be routine. A gynecological procedure. But somebody made what she calls "some boo boos," and she was sent home bleeding. Profusely. Standing in that shower, white carpet in the next room, she had a decision to make.

Rosemary describes the moment: "I thought about 1 Corinthians 10:13 which said God will show you a way out and I thought this is my way out I have been asking heal me or let me go apparently the answer is I'm I'm being allowed to go so I stood in that shower and I thought maybe this is God's mercy."

But then she thought about all the people who'd tried so hard to save her over those 29 months. Perhaps it wasn't fair to them to just die now. She stepped out of the shower and told her friends to call 911.

The ER Mistakes

The ambulance took her to a small emergency room, where more mistakes were made. They gave her morphine, which, as she learned later, "turns out when you're bleeding to death is a real bad idea that depressed my heartbeat even more and blood pressure as well."

Her friend witnessed what happened next. He looked up at the blood pressure cuff: 32 over 25. For all purposes, gone. Dead. But then her eyes popped open. She tried to sit up on the gurney. She reached straight up to heaven, like a child reaching for their father to pick them up, and spoke a few words to somebody only she could see. Then she flopped back down.

Her friend said: "and then your blood pressure went to error which meant it was lower than 32 over 25."

Rosemary remembers feeling woozy on the gurney. After the morphine shot, she felt like she was going to sleep. What happened next, she says, was like being awakened from a very intense dream.

Toast Popping Out of a Toaster

She describes the moment: "when I woke up like I was I felt like I'd been catapulted out of my body I mean that's what awakened me was this feeling of being Jarred awake I've often described it as like toast popping out of a toaster I mean it was very dramatic being popped out of my body."

She heard a ping, a plop, as she separated from her body. And she knew exactly what was happening. She'd read books about near-death experiences her whole life. She'd been fascinated by them. Now she was having one.

The first words out of her mouth: "my heart is stopped and I thought how do I know that I thought I don't know that but I know that's right I was like Wow and then I thought I'm dying and then being the long-term editor and writer I thought actually you're not dying you're dead because when you're going onto your reward correcting your tense really is the most important thing."

She laughed. She cracked herself up. And she heard herself giggle, and she sounded just like she'd always sounded. This wasn't telepathic communication, she insists. She was speaking: "I was speaking perhaps even more realistically uh tangibly than I than I am right now."

She thought: every single thing I am, down to my funny little giggle, has made this transition. My macabre sense of humor. My goofiness. She didn't have vocal cords or lungs or breath, and yet she was still producing sound, still hearing sound.

She remembers thinking: "what did I leave on that gurnie and I thought the guilt the self-recrimination the anxiety the sadness the pain the regret the whole every negative emotion you can imagine is what I had left behind and in this new experience I was shed of all that."

As an over-ruminating, neurotic writer, she'd always wondered what she'd look like without those anxieties and fears. Now she knew. She liked this feeling. She wasn't her fears, her worries, her woes. She was this person. And she liked this person.

The Awakening From a Dream

The predominant feeling, she says, was being awakened from a very intense dream. She'd been alive for 59 years, "and it felt very much like I had just been shaken awake and somebody said hey that was a pretty intense dream you had went on for a while and yet the fact is those 59 years felt like literally the blink of an eye it was like whoa that was well none of that was that big a deal."

All the drama. Her husband's suicide. Friends leaving her. The financial stress. The homelessness. She thought: "huh none of that was that big a deal."

She was floating further and further away from wherever she'd been. She felt the presence of spiritual beings with her. She was in blackness. Several people have asked if she saw her body. She didn't. The blackness was velvety soft, and it was actively comforting her.

The peace, she says, was everything: "the Peace the peace was like peace was infused into every every iota of who I am every bit of who I am was infused with this perfect peace and I even thought about the Bible verse the peace of God that passeth all understanding and I thought this is that peace I could never describe to somebody what this piece is like because it passes what we can understand."

She had all her memories. The fireman who came to her house to put her on a gurney and take her to the hospital. It wasn't a life review, but memories of all the love that had been shown to her were predominant. That was so comforting. No spiritual being standing with her as she watched her life unfold on a screen. Just the love. The kindness. The goodness.

She remembers talking to a friend named Pat after her husband's death. Rosemary had said: "Pat I am ashamed of what I did to survive because I went through a phase of uh drinking too much and uh becoming addicted to prescription medication and some other behaviors that were not really aligned with who I am and she said Rosemary I don't care what you had to do to survive you survived and you know that's in the past you got through it and you stayed alive she said that's all that matters."

As she floated further away, the spiritual beings with her were so glad to see her. If she had to sum up the experience in three words, she says: "welcome home Deary."

Finding Her Circle

Her whole life, Rosemary had been an oddball. She'd never fit into this world very neatly. She'd felt like such an outsider to life. But in this experience, she was with beings who were so proud of her, so happy to see her back.

She remembers an old poem: "the humans drew a circle and kept me out but then God drew a circle and took me in and that's what it felt like I'd finally found my circle where people surrounded me and said hey here you are look at you we're so glad you're home we're so glad you're back it all worked out didn't it."

She had not one thought of returning to this earthly experience. She was so grateful. Throughout her life, she'd kept a daily list of five things for which she was grateful. In this experience, "I thought I'm so grateful it's over I'm so grateful God heard my prayers I ask God to heal me or let me go and I got both I got healed and I got to leave and it really felt like i' had been granted early release for good behavior."

She thought about the chemotherapy and radiation treatment she was supposed to start the next week. Her reaction: "that has ceased to be a problem that is no longer a concern." Financial obligations? "not my problem anymore I am done."

The intensity of the memories was comforting. She remembered everything from this experience. It felt like: "my whole life I'd been living out of a 60 amp breaker box and now somebody's putting a 100,000 amps through it you know I was like whoa wow everything is so much bigger than I thought."

The Original and the Image

Early in the experience, she felt the presence of a massive spiritual being to her left, much taller than her and slightly behind her. She turned her head to the left and looked up. She was cognizant of the fact that she was turning her head, that whatever thing they had over there, they take some of here.

She asked: "huh and who are you because I couldn't see anything I'm in this perfect Blackness but the answer I know people talk about this but it's true even before I could finish the question the answer was immediate and it wasn't just words but it came with an infusion of understanding but the answer was you Rosemary you are the image and likeness I'm the original."

Genesis 1:26. A Bible verse she'd struggled her whole life to understand. Made in the image and likeness of God. Now she got it. There's an original, and she's the image and likeness.

What impressed her deeply was that we are not only loved by God, but really liked. She'd had a dad who kept pictures of his three sons on his desk at work. When she was 13 or 14, she asked how she could get a picture on his desk. He said: "oh you have to earn it it's not granted you have to earn a spot on my desk which you know meant in his heart too."

She thought that's what God was. You have to earn the love of everybody and everything except your mom. But the message she got in this experience was different. She says: "God not only loves us but really likes us and the best part was that God likes us as is God doesn't say when you when you do something noteworthy when you fulfill your purpose when you stop being stupid or foolish or sleeping too late or you know playing on the computer when you stop and start doing the right thing you'll be loved and and message was you are so loved you are so appreciated gosh we like you."

There are still days when she has to go back to that memory of being surrounded by spiritual beings who said she's back, she's home, we're so glad you're home.

The White Room and the Mist

At some point, she doesn't remember the transition, but she was in a white room. No longer floating, but standing on something approximating two legs. The white room was beautiful. Luminescent. Bright white. No white fixtures. Very heavy mist falling.

She saw a door in front of her, "and having been a fan of the ND East I knew exactly what that door meant." The door was 15 to 20 feet in front of her. She thought: if I can perambulate with intention toward that door, I know I'll get there. She wanted to be at that door, through the door. She knew the door would make sure she didn't go back to there.

She felt the beings were still with her, but she couldn't really see them. She could hear them and sense them. Her message was clear: "everybody out of the way we're doing the door clear a path path going to get there as fast as possible."

As she approached the door, the mist falling all around her was also swirling around her. Not just gravity. Swirling and dancing. Very beautiful mist. She asked one of the spiritual beings: I feel like I should be able to focus on an individual droplet of this mist.

The angelic being said: "you're spiritual eyes have not acclimated to this yet." The being also said what she was seeing were particles of light, and they likened it to a spiritual car wash.

It was explained to her that "some people die with such a belief impressed upon them that that disease process is part of their Identity or mental illness is part of their spiritual innate Identity or spiritual identity that this has to be cleansed off of them before they proceed to heaven and so it was explained to me that this was washing away the muck of the Earth all other people's opinions of me my own false opinions of me ideas about again disease processes of many names and it was all being Stripped Away."

At some point in this experience, it was conveyed to her that if she agreed to go back, she would be restored to wholeness. Not "you'll be healed of that stage two cancer," but restored to wholeness. The word integrity, she notes, has the same root word as wholeness. Our spiritual integrity is what we should all be seeking.

The Door and the Choice

She got to that door. She put her right hand up to push through. She was a little miffed it was shut. But then she paused.

She asked the spiritual being: "is this the Divine will for my life that a medical mistake sends me to my reward and I again I could all I could get through is is this the Divine and the answer was immediate the answer was no but I was told whatever you decide you go with all of God's mercy and blessings and Grace and care and love I was like sweet I'll take that deal."

She was ready to push on. But then she was given an image of the nurse. Before she lost consciousness on that gurney in the ER, a very sweet motherly nurse had held her hand. Rosemary had been anxious. When you're bleeding to death, anxiety is a common side effect. The brain is a big consumer of energy and oxygen. When you lose sufficient blood, you can't reason. You can't say it'll probably be fine.

The nurse had said: "oh honey we're not going to let you die we have many solutions for this." Rosemary was so comforted.

Now, at this door in this white room, she had a very strong vision. It was like she'd been put in a hospital supply room to watch this nurse. The nurse didn't know she was there. The nurse was "leaning forward head in her hands sobbing uncontrollably and I'm witnessing this I know she can't hear me see me experience me but I'm witnessing this and she says through tears she says and sobs I promised that woman I wasn't going to let her die and I've lost her."

Rosemary thought: oh man. Way to get an empath. Show her somebody else's pain. She thought: you know what, she's about my age, she's been through this, I have to leave, I cannot go back to that experience, I can't.

But then she wasn't just shown this woman. She felt "the grief and regret and sadness she had literally in her in the center of my being and I recognized that as the same grief and despair I had known since my husband's death 29 months earlier I remember thinking if I can spare one human being that much pain I have to go back."

She put her right hand down by her side. She thought: I do have to return. I have to spare her that.

As soon as that right hand went down: "I was back in that body in a second a millisecond thing was there was no backwards push there was no whoop nothing I was just back on that gurnie."

The Aftermath

Rosemary was dead for more than 10 minutes. When somebody dies from bleeding to death, you can't do CPR because that just pushes more blood out of the body. An emergency room physician told her for the book she later wrote: plug the leak, refill the tank, and restart the heart. That's what they do.

The point is, her brain had no blood supply, no oxygen, for more than 10 minutes. According to medical personnel, she should have been significantly compromised by this event.

The first doctor at her bedside said she'd had a heart attack. Rosemary said: "not me I eat my fruits and veggies I ride my bike I'm you know I'm in great shape said Noe nope nope Miss thn you've had a heart attack." Blood tests showed elevated blood enzymes, which show damage to the heart. He said she'd sustained some heart damage and they'd do some testing.

Rosemary said: "you don't need to do the test the angel said if I agreed to come back I'd be fine fine F fine."

They did the test anyway. All the tests showed absolutely no heart damage. She was in excellent health.

She had to find another oncologist because when she told the first one "good news we don't need to do that chemo or radiation because I was healed in heaven," he wrote "mental ill on my chart."

The new oncologist did many more biopsies, taking flesh from all kinds of places. The oncologist said: "there's not one cell of cancer anywhere on your body and she said and not only is there no evidence of cancer she said had it not been all for all the original tests and all the original stuff they did she said I wouldn't believe you ever had cancer your flesh is so pink and pretty and perfect so there's no evidence of any disease ever having been present."

People say she never had cancer. But the thing that sent her to the doctor was very disturbing symptoms. It had been visible on initial exam. She thinks there's little doubt about that.

But the bigger deal: that grief and despair she'd had over her husband's unfortunate end was gone. She forgave herself. She'd tried for 29 months to "forgive myself and to let go of that last argument and to blame myself that if only I had not gotten upset with him he'd still be here that guilt was gone the self-re discrimination the self-hatred the wishing I was dead."

She realized all three of her prayers had been answered. Heal me or let me go. She got both. No life review. All she remembered was all the love that had been shown her. No more hard decisions. She was told whatever you decide, you'll be blessed.

Angels at the Bedside

After she came back, when the folks left her bedside in the hospital, angels appeared. On three sides. The two sides and at the foot of the bed. They sang to her.

She looked at them and thought "wow and then they would sing and their songs were glorifying God and their songs were so beautiful and and they were I would SOB I remember this so clearly I sobbed as they sang to me because it was like too much Beauty you know it was just too much beautiful for one person to take in and through SBS I would say don't stop it's just so beautiful."

She talked to them. She said she's really good at architecture. That's her thing. Her books are on architectural history. She's really good at images and houses and memorizing images. But she's not going to be able to remember the melody or the lyrics. She desperately wanted to. She wanted to never forget what they were singing.

The angel said: "this is not for you to remember you know the melody and lyrics they said this is for your healing this is for your peace this is for your joy and they also said this is a thank you for agreeing to come back because we know that life on Earth is hard."

As to what they looked like: very tall, like 6 and a half feet plus. They had a humanesque form. Head, shoulders, torso. But they were draped in gowns made of light with sparkles. Like beads with a couple inches of space and another bead and a couple inches of space.

As they sang, "they became more sparkly and more light filled and the more they glorified God and sang about love the the brighter they got and they just got brigh and brighter and they were so happy to be singing about light and love and beauty and and their songs were just to the glory of God."

She wonders if we have that around us a lot and we just need to open our eyes to see what's really going on in this earthly experience. She knows we have angels with us all the time. She loved that they said: we know that human life on this Earth is hard, and we're here to thank you for coming back.

The Piano and the Light

The first church service she went to after her experience, she was sitting in the pews. The pianist came in, sat down, and prayed the prelude for the service. As soon as she struck those chords: "there was an explosion of light came out from under the piano from you know the Hammers and the strings an explosion of light and I mean explosion was sitting in the Pe like and I remember looking around like anyone else seeing this."

This explosion of light was all colors. Yellows and greens and blues and pinks and reds. So beautiful. So much light came off, and it went straight up to the ceiling, then spread out over the ceiling, then dripped down on all of them. That's when she saw "the the the most relevant I can make it is to the the Sparks that come off when a welder is welding too Metals together you know produces those yellowish Sparks that just they roll across the ground you ever seen that I mean you think they would just extinguish immediately but that's what it was like."

These sparks went way up in all these colors and came down on all the congregants' heads and the pews beside them and the floor. They were being rained in this beautiful heavenly light show.

She's begged God, begged the angels, to let her see it again. She's never seen it again. But she's never heard a musical instrument played without remembering it. Anytime she hears music, she thinks: I know it's really happening. We're being showered with light and love.

Corn and Simplicity

After she came back from this, Rosemary sold pretty much all her worldly possessions and moved a thousand miles to the Midwest. She'd been living on the East Coast. She moved because: "I just want to watch corn grow I really love watching plants grow have you ever thought about the Majesty of how you put some itty bitty seed in the in the dirt and you stomp it down and then it produced is this incredible plant."

She can't get past the corollaries to her own life. She'd just been stomped into the ground by life. But life, sometimes that's what starts life. When you get given up and people say that thing's never going to produce anything good, look at her.

She likes watching corn grow. She likes being in the Midwest. She lives in the middle of a lot of corn fields. She sold most of her stuff. She didn't have that much, but she realized when she was floating away from her body, she was the happiest she'd ever known in conscious memory. You don't need stuff to be happy.

She'd inherited many things from her beloved mama, who died many years ago. She couldn't let go of those things. But after this, she realized: I have the lovely memories. I don't need the thing. When she was floating away, she felt so much peace. That enabled her to let go of all this material stuff.

She started a new life in the Midwest and wrote a book. She said she wasn't going to write a book. She'd written nine books already. This was going to be number 10. No, no, no, double no, not writing. She quotes Dorothy Parker: "I hate writing I love having written." She's with her on that. Mainly, she hates writing. But she wrote a book because several people said it would be a blessing to others. She was a reluctant writer.

You can learn more about Rosemary's experience at her website, temporarydeath.com, or watch her tell her story in greater detail in other interviews she's given about this profound experience.

What This Experience Reveals

There's a detail in Rosemary's account that I keep returning to: the mist in the white room, the spiritual car wash. The idea that some people die so convinced that their disease or mental illness is part of their identity that it has to be cleansed off them before they proceed. That's not a metaphor about psychological healing. That's a description of a real process happening in a real place to real consciousness.

This aligns with one of the most consistent patterns across thousands of NDE accounts: the recognition that we are not our suffering. Rosemary left behind the guilt, the self-recrimination, the anxiety, the sadness, the pain, the regret. Every negative emotion stayed on the gurney. What went with her was her funny little giggle, her macabre sense of humor, her goofiness, her memories of love and kindness. The essence of who she really is.

The detail about correcting her verb tense while dying is so wonderfully human. "Actually, you're not dying, you're dead." Even in the most transcendent moment of her existence, she's still an editor. That tells us something crucial: personality doesn't dissolve into some cosmic soup. We remain ourselves. We become more ourselves, freed from the distortions of fear and pain.

Rosemary's account of being welcomed home by beings who were so glad to see her, so proud of her, is one of the most moving descriptions I've encountered. She'd been an oddball her whole life, never fitting in, always feeling like an outsider. And then she arrives on the other side and finds her circle. The humans drew a circle and kept her out, but God drew a circle and took her in. This is what awaits all of us: not judgment, not a tribunal, but a homecoming. Welcome home, deary.

The message from the spiritual being, "You are the image and likeness, I'm the original," is a perfect encapsulation of the relationship between individual consciousness and source consciousness. We're not God, but we're made of the same stuff, patterned after the same template. Rosemary had read Bible commentaries and exegeses her whole life trying to understand Genesis 1:26. In one instant on the other side, she got it. That's what direct knowing feels like.

And the detail about God not only loving us but liking us, liking us as we are right now, not when we get our act together or fulfill our purpose or stop being stupid: that's the core message of nearly every NDE. You are loved. You are appreciated. You are enough. Not because of what you've accomplished, but because of what you are.

The choice Rosemary made at the door is instructive. She was ready to go through. She had no desire to return. But when she was shown the nurse's grief, when she felt that pain in the center of her being, she couldn't inflict that suffering on another person. That's what brought her back: compassion. Not duty, not obligation, not unfinished business. Just the recognition that she could spare one human being that much pain.

And then the fulfillment of her three prayers. Heal me or let me go: she got both. No life review: just memories of love. No more hard decisions: whatever you decide, you'll be blessed. God heard her. God answered her. Just not in the way she expected.

The complete healing of her cancer, the absence of heart or brain damage after 10 minutes without oxygen, the disappearance of 29 months of grief and self-recrimination: these aren't miracles in the sense of violations of natural law. They're demonstrations of what consciousness can do when it's aligned with its source. Rosemary was told she'd be restored to wholeness. Wholeness. Integrity. The spiritual reality asserting itself over the physical distortion.

And the angels singing at her bedside, thanking her for agreeing to come back, acknowledging that life on Earth is hard: that's the other side's recognition of what we're doing here. This isn't easy. This isn't trivial. We're not being tested or punished. We're learning, growing, experiencing, and the beings on the other side know how difficult that is. They're grateful when we choose to stay and do the work.

Rosemary's vision of light exploding from the piano, showering down on the congregation, is a glimpse of what's happening all the time in this world. We're surrounded by light and love. We're being showered with it constantly. We just can't see it most of the time because our spiritual eyes haven't acclimated. But it's there. Music produces it. Beauty produces it. Love produces it. It's raining down on us right now.

What Rosemary discovered is what thousands of near-death experiencers have discovered: this life is the dream. That place is home. We're eternal beings having a temporary human experience, not human beings hoping for an eternal experience. And when we go home, we'll be welcomed by beings who are so glad to see us, so proud of us, so happy we're back. It all worked out, didn't it?

That's what's waiting for all of us. Not judgment, not annihilation, not oblivion. A homecoming. Welcome home, deary.