Curley: Someone from the other side contacted me, and it changed how I think about death

The day my father was dying was September 17. It was 8:30 in the morning. I know it well because I remember looking at my phone numerous times.

Nick and I were sitting in a hotel room in Sonoma, and I was going through the fact that my father was probably going to die that day. My brother had called to say, “Don’t bother getting on the plane. Tell Lace and the kids not to get on the plane. They probably won’t make it in time. So why don’t you just wait?”

I then, while given the news that the end of my father’s life was coming within hours, I said, “OK, well, all right, I’ll let her know.”

And Alaska Airlines was great. They got him, got him off the plane, got them some counseling, talked to them, and I knew that part of my family was safe.

I then turned to Nick, and I said, “You know, it’s pretty remarkable for a person my age to only lose three people in my life that I care and love so desperately.”

My aunt Mary, Lisa Nori, and now my dad. I just counted up the three. I said, so those three, that’s pretty good. To only lose three at this point.

And suddenly, without any warning, I happened to have my phone in my hand because I had been texting Lace back and forth. Suddenly, across the top of the phone, across the top, scrolled, “Call Kevin Straley. Call Kevin Straley.”

It was going across the very top of the phone. I paused and looked at it, and I took a deep breath, just for a second, and Nick leaned over and said, “What is it?” And I said, “What does that say?” I didn’t want to read it again. I didn’t want to say anything to her. I just wanted her to see it and read it out loud.

And she did: “Call Kevin Straley. Call Kevin Straley.” It kept going across the top. She paused for a moment, and I said, “Have you ever seen anything like that before across the top of the phone? Look at it scrolling across the top of the phone, scrolling like a banner ad. Who’s Kevin Straley?”

Straley, oh my God. Straley died in a motorcycle accident on I-90 a couple of years ago, and he and I traveled around the world shooting stories for Evening Magazine. We went to just about every single country you could probably imagine.

And “Call Kevin Straley. Call Kevin Straley.” kept coming across the top of the phone, and I put the phone down. I sort of laughed for a moment. I looked up to the ceiling of the hotel room. And I said, “OK, I’ve lost four people that I care about and love. My aunt Mary, Lisa Nori, my dad, now within hours, and Kevin Straley.”

I didn’t bother to look to see whether the scrolling had stopped, but I kind of laughed at Straley, thinking, “Well, if anybody’s going to jump in in this incredible moment, it would probably be somebody like that.”

I didn’t realize at the time, because I had so many other things to deal with, like my father’s pending demise. It wasn’t until later on that it started to hit me that that was a bizarre experience. I told other people about it. Even called Kevin’s wife, Sheila, and told her. She wasn’t surprised by it, but that was about 2018, and then on Monday, Joe sent me this podcast of these individuals who examine past life experiences, near-death experiences, and telepathy.

It’s an amazing podcast, because it’s not only stories that have been vetted by scientists, not by people that we always just sort of write off as woo-woo people. They’re called “The Telepathy Tapes.”

I was listening to one, and I thought, well, I’ve now experienced some of the stuff. Someone from the other side had contacted me. And what it gave me is I thought about it later on, and I still remember, and I still draw some comfort from this, is that somebody could leave this plane, this body, these organs and bones and flesh and everything, and then go somewhere, and then still be in our lives, somewhere.

A neurologist’s near-death experience defied medical explanation

I came across the story of Dr. Alexander. His father was a famed neurologist, and he was as well. He was adopted, and he became quite well known and well respected in the world of neurology. On November 4, at 4:30 in the morning in 2008, he woke up to grand mal seizures.

He had E. coli bacteria, which normally doesn’t show itself in adults, it’s normally something that a child can get, and his entire brain was filled, as he describes, with pus. And all parts of the brain, all eight sections of the brain, that would give him some sort of consciousness, were completely shut down. He had no ability to fire off any neurological impulses. Because often in near-death experiences, doctors will say, “Well, that’s just simply the brain’s dying, and it’s sort of firing off a bunch of images, and that’s how they write all this stuff off.”

But in this case, for Dr. Alexander, he had no brain capacity at all, and his coma went on for, I think, seven days or 10 days, and on the ninth day, the doctors took him from a 10% chance of recovery down to 2% and told his family, Dr. Alexander’s family, that was gathered nearby, that they should just unplug and let nature take its course.

His son, Bond, overheard this and ran into the room, grabbed his father’s eyelids, and pulled them open. And in that kind of coma state, one eye was to the left, the other was looking down or up to the right. It must have been quite shocking for the son, but he said to his father, “You can’t die, Dad, you can’t die. Please, please. I need you. I need you.” And pleaded with him to live, and within a couple of hours, Mr. Alexander came back, but in the time from his coma, where he was in the hospital, to the point that his son pulled his eyelids back open again, Dr. Alexander experienced a near-death experience.

He explains the whole thing of where he was sort of in an earthworm position covered by darkness, and it was cold and lonely. And then he was suddenly pulled forward and up through a light. You’ve heard these stories before. There was a guardian angel who was with him and taking him through all of these layers. He said he was like a small little speck on the wing of a butterfly.

He finds out later on, after he remembers the face of the guardian angel, normally the guardian angels are somebody who’s passed, he finds out that he had a sister who was also adopted. So he didn’t know this until he did some research, and the face of the angel was the face of his adopted sister, whom he had never met before, but guided him through this near-death experience.

He comes back to Earth, and he says he realized at this point that this is just temporary, that really the great, good stuff, the proof of Heaven, is there. He has a book that came out, which was republished again in 2022, called “The Proof of Heaven.”

I’ve done more research into this. I’ve spent more time reading and watching, and I came across this guy. Because if we’re here on this earth, we do all these stories about all this crap, right? And then when people leave the Earth and all this stuff where we hate one another, and all the death and mayhem and anger, resentment, then you come back to Earth, and what is the lesson?

Those who come back realize this life is temporary, and we should be good to one another

Well, there’s another guy who experienced a near-death experience. He had the flu, which was nearly fatal for him, and he explains what it was like going there and then coming back to Earth. And he explains that it changes his perspective on everything.

“When we live our life and our vibration is low because we’ve been selfish and self-centered and mean-spirited, and you know, we all know these people, we’ve all met them. And when we leave our bodies, when we die and leave our bodies, our vibration is going to match that low vibration of that, those lower places, and that’s well, where we’ll be stuck,” he said. “It’s not forever. It’s just till we sort out where we went wrong in this life, because we are these infinite, amazing beings.”

In this little, horrible worm situation that they described, that’s where you sort of realize, “OK, I need to be a better person.” I guess that’d be considered hell. And then once you sort of figure that out, the vibrations change. And then you come through that kind of wormhole, that little dirty area, and then you’re freed into this other space.

And then those who come back again now have the gift to realize this stuff is so temporary, and it doesn’t really matter, and you should just try to be good to one another. And then you’ll pass on, and then you’ll be in a place where everybody you loved and everybody you knew … you’ll be encircled by a feeling of love.

You realize you’re like, “OK, well, then should we even bother doing these stupid stories right here?” It’s very freeing.

It makes you feel like you’re going to some event. It’s crappy, and it’s all horrible food, and people are talking about dumb stuff. You think, is there another room somewhere? Something better? Something better? Is there gonna be a better place?

Well, apparently, according to a world-renowned doctor. Doctors who peer reviewed it said, “No, this is a perfect example that it’s not just a brain dying, firing off neurological electrical impulses. This guy did not have a functioning brain, but he had a consciousness.” So his near-death experience and his life now have completely changed how science looks at it.

Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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