The Quiet Before Waking

She had fallen backward into the fire pit, her family gone to bed. She tried to free herself but the embers only made it impossisable to do. Burns over 70% of her body.

I visited her whenever I could.
Eventually she was brought home so she could spend her last stretch of time surrounded by family.

One afternoon she asked everyone to step out of the room.
Then she looked at me and said, “Sit here,” patting the space beside her on the bed.

Her voice was thin but steady when she finally spoke.
“I’m scared,” she said. “Not of dying… but of what’s on the other side.”

I told her what I’ve told so many people in hospice, in hospital rooms, in living rooms where the air feels heavy with the nearness of God.

“Death,” I said, “is no different than going to sleep at night.
You lie down, you close your eyes, and time passes — but you’re not aware of it.
And when you wake, it’s a new day.

The only difference is that in death, when you wake, you wake in heaven.
You stand before God.
And the One who meets you there already knows your name.”

She let those words settle.
Not quickly — more like someone easing into warm water, feeling the temperature shift around them.

Her shoulders softened first.
Then her breath.
Then her eyes, which had been fixed on some far‑off fear, slowly returned to the room we were actually in.

The air changed, too.
It was as if the whole space exhaled with her — that heavy, waiting quiet giving way to something gentler, almost like a blessing.

She reached for my hand.
Not tightly.
Just enough to say, I heard you. I’m not alone.

For a long moment we didn’t speak.
There was nothing left to explain, nothing to solve.
Just presence — hers, mine, and the unmistakable nearness of God that fills a room when someone is preparing to step from one reality into another.

When I finally stood to leave, she whispered, “Thank you.”
But it wasn’t gratitude for an answer.
It was gratitude for company — for someone willing to sit beside her on the edge of the great unknown without flinching.

I carried that with me.
Still do.

Because every time I’m invited into a moment like that, I’m reminded that death isn’t a cliff or a darkness or a punishment.
It’s a crossing.
A waking.
A hand already reaching.
And the God who meets us there is not a stranger.