The Paranormal Review, Issue 35, 2005.

 

THE SICKBED VISION OF MRS NESKA ONG A KWIEN (note 1) by Titus Rivas and Anny Dirven IN 2003, Mrs Neska Ong A Kwien of Amersfoort, the Netherlands - her surname is indeed Chinese - repeatedly sent us messages about various paranormal experiences she had had, through both e-mail and normal mail (Rivas, 2004). The experiences that concern us here, were described by her as follows: My mother was very ill and her condition was critical; so we took watch at her bedside for a couple of days, from Wednesday February 28th until the evening of Friday March 2nd 2001. On the Thursday morning, I had a special experience while standing at the foot of her bed, at about 4:30 am. I only fully realised what the nature of the experience a few hours later. Though I was aware of something at the moment, I did not know what it was. I was standing at the left foot of the bed when suddenly I felt my heart get warmer, and the warmth went down to my solar plexus, and there was a very thin ray that went to my mother. A few moments later I was 'back' and I was smiling. I thought: 'It will be all right'; and I had a feeling of relief. It was very strange to be standing there. My mother had had a blood pressure of 62/54. Later on, one of my sisters-in-law and I went to my parents' place to make some sandwiches and stuff for the others who were still at the hospital. I wanted to sit down for a while to relax a bit and suddenly I was taken by surprise by a 'Light' and I fell asleep - from one moment to the next. Then I saw what had happened at my mother's bedside. Something had simply made me fall asleep. My mother was standing at the 'borderline'. She had to make a decision. On one side, behind the beautiful, bright white light, several people were standing: her father and mother and her sister Wiepke who died at a young age during the war. I was standing on the other side of the border. My background looked cream-coloured with brown spots. I told my mother: 'Whatever you will do, everything is going to be alright. You have to decide, but everything is alright. Even by the time I will be 70 and you will be 100, I will always remain your little girl. It does not matter. But you have to decide. Whatever you do, everything is all right'. My mother slowly recovered and she is still recovering, but she has always kept the will to stay alive and she will never give up. I talked with her about this experience but she claims she cannot remember anything. My mother has lost a lot of memories of her stay at the hospital. She had six operations in a short period of time and she is still having a hard time coping with all that. I've asked her whom the young girl was standing next to her father and mother. I was able to describe her as a young girl with half-long blond/brown hair, who was wearing a dress with a tight top and a wide skirt of chequered material. The name that came to me sounded like Wiesje. As I said before, the correct name was Wiepke. My mother never told anyone about this sister, because soon afterwards my grandparents had another daughter whom they gave the same name Wiepke again. That is why they never talked about the first sister by the name of Wiepke - and no one in our family did. I was very surprised to hear about this sister when I told my mother about ''our experience' at the hospital and asked her some questions. My mother immediately recognised her from my description: the hair and blue eyes, but especially the dress. According to my mother, Wiepke really did have such a dress. Right after the experience, the name of Wiesje stuck with me as a combination of sounds.' It should be noted that the Dutch names Wiesje and Wie(p)ke are both used as (possibly somewhat old-fashioned) diminutives of the name Louise. We managed to get a separate confirmation from Neska's mother on December 3rd 2003. Mrs Ong A Kwien Sr. stressed that she had never told her daughter about Wiepke. She repeatedly said to us: 'How is it possible that Neska saw this?' Wiepke was born in October 1943 and she died in March 1945. She died because some peas and beans had fallen on the floor and she ate one of them without her parents noticing. Earlier that day, Wiepke had accompanied the family to the bakery and she had even eaten some pancakes, but in the evening the bean or pea that had stuck in her trachea inflated. According to her mother, Neska thought she recognised her deceased aunt Wiepke from a photograph after the sickbed vision. However, the person on the photo was not Wiepke, but a younger sister of her mother's. Remarkably enough, this younger sister did indeed resemble Wiepke very much, according to Neska's mother Mrs. Ong A Kwien. This case is different from other documented experiences of shared deathbed visions, because Neska's mother did not die, but recovered, and also because her mother does not recall anything herself. Nevertheless, the correspondences of this 'sickbed vision' with 'real' deathbed visions or near-death experiences can hardly be overlooked. Furthermore, the case is reminiscent of that of the nurse Margaret Moser documented by Susy Smith (Smith, 2000), because Neska Ong A Kwien apparently received paranormal impressions of a deceased personality who had thus far been unknown to her. In 1949, Moser, a nurse in Long Island, repeatedly got impressions of the apparition of an elderly lady at the deathbed of one of her patients, Mrs. Rose B., who also saw this lady and claimed that it was her late sister. At the funeral of this same patient, Moser noticed a man whose face had very similar features as the apparition she had seen. He turned out to be the son of the deceased sister of Mrs. Rose B.'s. References Rivas, T. (2004). Spirituele ervaringen rond het sterfbed van iemand anders. Terugkeer, 15(1), 18-22. Smith, S. (2000). Life Is Forever: Evidence for Survival After Death. iUniverse. Note 1. We wish to thank Chris Canter for improving our text. Contact: Titus Rivas - Papers in English of Athanasia Foundation