A Wondrous World

Longtime magazine writer and Indy contributor Hilary Dole Klein wrote this week’s cover story about At Heaven’s Door, a new book by William Peters about shared-death experiences.

How did you meet William Peters?  In 2014, I joined a group William Peters was leading on “Life Beyond Death.” I loved it. That group and a later one, “Doing Death Differently,” reinforced my suspicion that out of fear and denial, I had missed opportunities to be with relatives when they were dying.

Do you have a personal connection to the phenomenon of shared-death experience?  No, but, sitting on a swing in the backyard when I was a child, I watched, mesmerized, as a doll lying on the grass slowly raised one arm up in the air and then slowly lowered it. Ever since, I have been inclined to believe that the world is more wondrous than we might think.

What was your big takeaway from the book?  The 28 true-life — or true-death — stories show the possibility of great comfort, even transformation, around end-of-life scenarios. They support the notion that, like birth, death could be an awesome experience.

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