Laura Ketchledge: Her Beloved Grandfather Was Waiting

Medical Details

In April 1979, while horseback riding in Centreville, Virginia, she was thrown face first into rocks in a ditch when her galloping horse stumbled. She says two men resuscitated her at the scene. She had a massive concussion, a broken nose and a broken finger, and was badly bruised. She later was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.

The Experience

In April 1979, Laura Ketchledge was a young woman in Northern Virginia, newly on her own and loving life. On a beautiful spring day she went horseback riding and, racing with two other riders, felt her horse stumble. As she was flung forward, she says, she never felt the impact. She went instead into a soft, velvety, pitch-black tunnel, having left her body before she struck the rocks.

Unlike many accounts, she says her first feelings were shock, fear and grief at suddenly losing everything. Yet she felt no physical pain, only a magnificent feeling of being well. Then the most wonderful thing happened: her grandfather, who had died of cancer when she was twelve, the most precious person in the world to her, was there to comfort and guide her. He looked just as she remembered him, and his love was as strong as the day he died.

Next came her life review. She explains it was not a judgment; she was her own critic, re-experiencing her actions through others, feeling their hurt when she had been curt and their joy when she had been kind. She saw the girl she had protected from bullies, and the little girl to whom she had returned a lost cat. She understood such small things are enormous. For her the review held real anguish, a sense that she hadn't yet had a chance to do life right, and her grandfather stayed beside her through it.

She learned how responsive that reality is to thought; thinking of a tree of life, she instantly saw a beautiful tree. A blonde woman told her that if she returned, her life would be especially hard.

At the farthest point, she says, she burst into a place filled with souls, floating in a sea of love beneath a bright sky with no sun, as soothing classical music drifted in waves. She sensed the souls around her were parts of herself. She does not call it heaven; to her it was going home, to source. It was only a glimpse, filled with intense joy and love.

Back in a light, mauve-colored place with her grandfather, she knew it was time to return. She felt lessons and memories being taken from her, and grieved them. She sensed her grandfather wanted her to finish her life and to tell her grandmother he loved her. Then she swooshed back through the tunnel into her injured body.

At the hospital, a doctor accused her of taking drugs when she tried to share what happened, and she decided to keep it secret. But her grandmother, also named Laura, believed her.

How It Changed Their Life

She says her values shifted completely, her fear of death diminished, and she came to believe that how we treat others matters most. Soon after, she faced an autoimmune disease and difficult struggles, as the blonde woman had told her. She describes being able to perceive recently departed relatives afterward, and says she was able to comfort her dying parents and care for them. She calls the accident the greatest gift of her life.