WORDS AT THE THRESHOLD. WHAT WE SAY AS WE'RE NEARING DEATH

Lisa Smartt, MA, is the author of Words at the Threshold. A linguist, educator, and poet, she founded the Final Words Project, an ongoing study devoted to collecting and interpreting the mysterious language at the end of lives. She co-facilitates workshops about language and consciousness with Raymond Moody at universities, hospices, and conferences and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit her online at http://www.finalwordsproject.org. You’ll find her on social media here: Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/wordsatthethreshold/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/LisaASmartt Five years ago.  I listened in stunned silence as my skeptical and rationalist father described seeing angels in his last days of life. Three days before dying, he announced, "The angels say only three days left now." He spoke of a "green dimension" and his room crowded with people who were unseen to me. He also spoke in poetic and metaphoric language, describing the big art show that was approaching and the boxes he had to carry for his ceramicist wife of 54 years. I listened in awe as I transcribed his final words that not only painted a world unseen to me but were rich in language patterns that appeared to be unique to end of life. Trained in linguistics, I was deeply curious about the language I witnessed. When I discovered little or no research had been done into people's final words, I established The Final Words Project (2014)  with Dr. Raymond Moody.