Did My Mother See Apparitions, Angels, Flashbacks or Ghosts?
Personal Perspective: She chatted away with people no one else could see.
Posted February 11, 2026 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma
My mother left this world beset by baffling symptoms following nearly lifelong depression , anorexia, terror, insomnia , and untreated despair. For forty years, she had managed a gift shop. This (unlike me) was her only joy.
I spent those last weeks sitting by her bed, first at the hospital, then at the home where doomed patients were sent: we two alone, with staff occasionally drifting through, adjusting tubes.
She spent those weeks addressing persons only she could see.
At nearly six feet tall but 78 pounds, this wizened reed who spent my childhood cussing at herself in mirrors and teaching me, by example and instruction, how to hate myself now chatted brightly into what most would call empty space. Over the hum of medical machines, facing away as if I wasn’t there, she queried, nodded, winked, and waved.
"Did you have lunch? Was it Chinese?"
"She went right up to the North Pole."
"Max, which bread is best?"
"Joe, you have a midget dog."
Often she waved a hand as if in greeting or goodbye, or gestured widely as if serving food. Meanwhile, she never looked at me. It's as if I, not those she addressed and whose names she chortled, was invisible.
"Bring scissors! You might need them!"
"Are you loving school?"
"This is a big boat. My mother is worried about me."
"Now Audrey's in this mess."
Sometimes while lying there, she smiled and even laughed, which was unnerving as I’d almost only ever seen her scowl, facing each camera lens — my dad was an avid photographer — with lips pulled tightly earward, eyes squeezed nearly shut: a mirthless moue, not a smile but a stretched-out Silly Putty “smile.”
This bright, perceptive NYU alumna, whom for 50 years I’d almost only ever heard accusing, warning, blaming, criticizing, mourning, censuring, denouncing, deploring, raging, and regretting — except to her gift-shop customers, whom she addressed with sincere care and curiosity — now seemed carefree.
Some of those names, she said, I recognized, some not. Some of those whom I recognized were dead, some not.
I've always believed in the supernatural : that souls survive or transcend time and space and even death, that memories can be imprinted and eternally replayed in places, such as battlefields and temples, linked with intense tragedy and bliss. If I ever had a religion, it is this. I'd often heard from healthcare workers that the dying sometimes claim to see angels and passed-on loved ones. Studies suggest that such deathbed visions , which researchers call DBVs, convey to the dying a crucial sense of comfort, companionship, and control .
Was this happening right now, before my eyes?
"Herbie, it's sort of a parade."
"Did Eugene go away for a while?"
"Was Tim in on this?"
Once every few days, she suddenly fixed her gaze on me and made demands: "Get me off this damn pier! Unlock this chain! The Spanish-speaking lady cannot breathe!"
When I said no, we weren't on a pier, no one nearby spoke Spanish or was chained or choking, she raged as in bygone times, insisting that I fcking could do any fcking thing she fcking asked if I just fcking cared, which clearly I did f*cking not.
But within moments, she forgot again that I was there.
Sitting there day by day, effectively invisible, a spectator unseen, I wondered: Is this the real Marcia? Was she born to be this blithe magpie, and might have been, had certain things not happened to her in, say, 1937, when she spent excessive childhood time alone and unprotected, when boys called her Beached Whale on the shore?
"Geraldine is on the phone, so help yourself."
"I hope that's water."
"Dory wants to be in love."
"It's slightly salty, but nobody needs to know."
I scribbled everything she said into a spiral pad. I'd always scribbled into spiral pads. At 12, I scribbled into spiral pads at Disneyland while my friends rode the rides. I’ve scribbled into spiral pads at beaches, geysers, Roman ruins, and murder scenes. So like a clerk taking dictation, I wrote what she said.
“There is a Manchester, would you believe?”
“He wraps them up because some people place their orders in advance."
“They could have gone to live in Palm Springs, don’t you think?”
“Bring it in, John, and put it near the door."
As I sat watching one morning, she died. It took me fifteen years to fish this spiral pad out from under my Chinese flashcards and read it at last.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.