Book Review: ‘Glimpses of Heaven’

Glimpses of Heaven: True Stories of Hope & Peace at the End of Life’s Journey
by Trudy Harris, RN
[Revell, $12.99]
release date: April 1, 2008

Trudy Harris, former president of the Hospice Foundation for Caring, relates tender and fascinating stories from people who are dying. The process of the soul separating from the body is one that many are eager to understand. This book relates the supernatural (and natural) happenings of many of the patients and family members this hospice nurse ministered to in her decades of service.

Harris believes that people do not pass from this earth in one final second of life. They spend time teetering on the precipice of this life and the next, in a journey of letting go. As he was dying, one patient related to her, “Trudy, there is no such thing as time. Dying is like walking from the living room into the dining room, there are no beginnings or endings.” It is this time period that Harris spends her book describing — a time and place she describes as “standing on holy ground.”

Some common threads throughout the individuals’ stories are:

• Visions of late family members often appear at the dying’s bedside: “It seems no one ever dies alone; God always sends someone we have loved to accompany us” (p. 37).*

• Often, the dying will cling to life until he feels his affairs are in order (plans made, amends made, family members home): “I always find it an interesting experience to talk with a patient and family about what needs to happen in order that a loved one might feel free to leave” (p. 45).

• Almost all of the patients encountered the love of God in a new, unprecedented way as they got closer to death: “It is the empty space inside of of us that St. Augustine speaks about when he says, ‘Our hearts are made for you alone, oh God, and they can not rest until they rest in Thee’” (p. 84).

Peaceful deaths are those that Harris describes. Quiet final breaths pepper her accounts — there is no mention of grisly “death rattles” we normally hear about. Her accounts often seem idealistic and exaggerated. But like the stories she recounts, you can’t argue with a man’s experience. This book, like her work, is meant to be a comfort to those who have lost loved ones, or those who will be touched by loss soon. It’s a noble attempt.

The only flaw worth pointing out seems to be her theology. An Irish Catholic, Harris makes it clear she’s not writing to share her doctrine. But she does come close to implying that everyone (at least those mentioned in this book) goes to heaven after they die. “God’s hand can clearly be seen in every story regardless of the past spirituality of the individual person or their family members” (p. 187). While that may be true, I guess time, and ultimately death, will reveal the full picture. Until then, all we have are “glimpses of heaven.” Those glimpses are beautiful, indeed.

* The pages mentioned are from the galley edition, not the final version.