The Healing Journey

November 22, 2024

As a Hospice nurse, Trudy Harris was there to comfort many dying people. From her experiences, she wrote two best-selling books that have sold millions of copies. She recounted one of her experiences in her first book, “Glimpses of Heaven: True Stories of Hope and Peace at the End of Life’s Journey.”

She wrote: “Many years ago, I was visiting a terminally ill patient at his home in the middle of the night. As I entered his room, he smiled and, pointing to the window nearest his bed, said to me, ‘There’s an angel at my window, Trudy. Can you see him?’ It was more than evident to me that Pat was actively dying and had very little time left, maybe an hour or so. He was peaceful and unafraid but awestruck by what he was seeing. I explained to him that God was preparing to take him home very soon, and He was letting him have a glimpse of Heaven before going in. He smiled knowingly, nodding his head in agreement, and seemed totally at peace with that thought. Since he lived alone, I promised to stay with him until he was taken there safely by the angel who was watching over him now. Sitting on the floor next to his bed, I held his hand for less than an hour until he died.”

Trudy Harris, RN, passed away on November 22, 2022, at 85 in Jacksonville, Fla., surrounded by her family. Her obituary told about her life’s work. As a young nurse, she opened a methadone clinic in New York and was a counselor for drug abusers. She helped begin a home for unwed mothers and supported an orphanage in Vietnam. In the early years of Hospice, she went to care for the terminally ill, and for decades, she worked as a “bedside caregiver” at Community Hospice & Palliative Care. She wrote two bestselling books about her experiences and was working on a third.

Most importantly, her obituary said, “Trudy was driven by her deep Catholic faith to help care for patients in their final days and to assist their family members during that loss and transition.”

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