A visit by Death

THE GRIM REAPER - IS IT REAL?

The Grim Reaper. Is it just artwork? Is it just storytelling? Is it an energy that has formed from our collective thoughts? Is it real?

A long while back I was friends with a fella who saw the Grim Reaper. He was living in Connecticut with his wife and brand new child. At the time, his wife was sleeping so the new dad decided to help out and give the new baby a bath. The child was only a month or two old. While he was bathing the child the Grim Reaper arrived. It floated through the bathroom and left. The man screamed for his wife. She woke up and came running, with all her 'new mommy' senses tingling. The dad was WHITE as a sheet and trembling as he handed the baby to her and said that he had just seen Death.

Two days later the man's sister, who was living in Texas, gave birth to a dead, still born child.

So what happened?

It is my opinion that perhaps the Grim Reaper knew that a baby in that family was to die and so showed up first at the home of the fella with the living baby. Upon seeing the baby the Grim Reaper knew that wasn't whom he was coming for so he went to the sister who was about to give birth instead.

Who knows. It could be!

My questions for ya'll -
- have you, or anyone you know, ever had an encounter with The Grim Reaper?
- what do you think the Grim Reaper is?

[edit on 11/27/2006 by FlyersFan]

Originally posted by FlyersFan

- have you, or anyone you know, ever had an encounter with The Grim Reaper?
- what do you think the Grim Reaper is?

Hi FF,

I haven't had an encounter with the Grim Reaper and I think the Grim Reaper is an urban/historical myth type deal.

sanc

[edit on 27-11-2006 by sanctum]

Well,
Flyers, I'll U2U you my thoughts on the subject after I have finished my day at Uni !

(longish)

But for the mean time ill leave this.

Babies funeral, rainy day. Every one (50 or so people) were stood around the grave in a huddle. Priest saying his bit, and when he got to 'lord, come down and collect the soul of...' bit, the clouds parted a small fraction, a ray of light came down from the sky, and shon on the coffin, and only the coffin. Not the edges of the grave, not any of us, just the coffin itself. This light then retreated back into the sky, and then when it got to the clouds, the closed around the ray, and it started to rain again.

I said it was a women with blonde hair in white inside the ray, the priest said a beautiful dazzling man in white, and the one thing that every one agreed on was that there was some thing in human form inside that light that was very beautiful..

Needless to say, even the priest was a bit shell shocked at this event, and joined us at the wake for a stiff drink.



[edit on 27-11-2006 by D4rk Kn1ght]

First Dark knight your avatar disturbs the hell out of me.

For FF - I believe all myths are originally created from truth and then distorted over time to become more scary and unreal sounding.
Everyone has a soul and I believe that those souls transport somewhere after death. Perhaps with a baby that wouldn't know the way, a grim reaper as we call them is simply a guardian that helps guide the child on it's way or returns it's soul to it's maker. I also feel that souls are resilient and that perhaps in this particular case the baby's body was weak and therefore the soul will be reincarnated into another baby's body to be born again.

~from FlyersFan~
...Is it an energy that has formed from our collective thoughts? Is it real?

~from D4rk Kn1ght~
(a ray of light...) I said it was a woman with blonde hair in white inside the ray,
the priest said a beautiful dazzling man in white, ...

Grim Reaper...or Angels / Holy Ghosts....or even pink elephants
are created 'within',
and all are 'real', in that we can experience physiological changes & symptoms
in witnessing, reacting to, or remembering, these mental creations.

(Goths v. Believers v. Imbibers, in the case of the 3 iconic images stated)
imho

FF

I think your friend may have seen a "shadow person" ...a black figure
not necessarily any grim reaper. Just another dimensionish type thing.

[edit on 27-11-2006 by dgtempe]

I think it is unreasonable to think that there is a single Grim Reaper that goes around the world collecting the souls of every single person that dies, only occasionally being seen for whatever unknown reason. It's sort of like believing Santa Clause can deliver presents all over the world in a single night.

Whether there is a whole series (hundreds of thousands), of spiritual beings who do something similar to this, I don't know.

Either way, I don't see the practicality of carrying a giant scythe around.

"Then the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies!" - Isaiah 37:36

185,000 men...in one night....

"I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one "like a son of man" with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, "Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe." - Revelation 14:14

Grim...reaper anyone?



[edit on 27-11-2006 by saint4God]

FF, that's an interesting story. It would seem that your interpretation is accurate. The Grim Reaper was a symbol of Death from medieval Europe, so its been around a long time. Thanks for sharing.

Originally posted by dgtempe
I think your friend may have seen a "shadow person" ...

I've seen a shadow person .. in Gettysburg. He haunts an area near the high school. A group of pine trees. We see him every time we go there.

The shadow person we see is very quick. He RUNS and his body is very stiff. I don't know if all shadow people act like that, but the one we have seen does.

Your suggestion that it may have been a shadow person is interesting. The bathroom was completely lit up ... I haven't heard of shadowpeople showing themselves in full light like that. Maybe they do.


SAINT4GOD ... I had forgotten about that bible quote. That was interesting!

YARCOFIN ... I don't think there is ONE Grim Reaper but perhaps many who have the job of helping souls to find their way after death. Considering how many ghosts we have on this planet who don't know that they are dead ... I think that the Grim Reapers are falling behind in their work! (either that or ghosts are actually purgatorive souls ... but that's a discussion for another thread).

DARKNIGHT ... WOW! Very interesting. Also, I'm sure it brought comfort to those who lost the baby. As a mom I'd be worried that no one was helping my child 'on the other side' ... it's a mom thing.



[edit on 11/27/2006 by FlyersFan]

I find it quite comical that you suggested the Grim Reaper made a mistake! Haha. I'm guessing that this person definitely saw an other-worldly being, but I doubt it was the so-called Grim Reaper. It's probably just a coincidence that a death followed.

Originally posted by saint4God
Grim...reaper anyone?

That is Azrael...but all the angels hold a reaper in their hand....all of them. Azrael is doing something else these days....got married and settled DOWN...and changed their name to Azazel.

The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
~Matthew 13:39

There was a thick cloud laying low in my town this morning...I drove in from just outside town...and it was only in town...

Now there is thunder and lightning and wind all around me, in this same place.

Odd weather for this time of year...very ODD.

Originally posted by an3rkist
I find it quite comical that you suggested the Grim Reaper made a mistake!

I think perhaps he got called to escort a baby from that family and so he went to the living baby first but upon seeing that the baby in the tub wasn't the one he was to get he then went to the sister giving birth in Texas.

At least that's one thought. We will never know.

I was just wondering if anyone else had encounters or what people thought the Grim Reaper was.

Grim Reapers perhaps make mistakes:

There was this guy who was supposed to die and for the sake of the story i'll call him Bob. He had been warned by a dead relative that his time was just about up.
Bob says, hell, i'm not going! He shaved his head and went into a darkened movie theater, figuring he'd be safe in the dark. In the meantime the grim reaper is looking all over for him, was exhausted, and said said to himself, ahhhh, what the heck, i'll go watch a movie. At the theater, the movie over, he said to himself, well, i cant go back without "Bob", so what the hell, i'm taking this bold guy next to me.
And so he did.

Originally posted by Yarcofin
I think it is unreasonable to think that there is a single Grim Reaper that goes around the world collecting the souls of every single person that dies, only occasionally being seen for whatever unknown reason. It's sort of like believing Santa Clause can deliver presents all over the world in a single night.

Why couldn't one supernatural being be in multiple places at one time. Being an entity from beyond our realm of knowledge, how can we say that it would be limited by our perception of time and space? Kinda the Kwitzarc Haderac (sp?) Reaper...

Flyers,
I couldn't seem to get the u2u system to work tonight...have no idea why.... so i'll share this here for you to ponder over.


I was in theatres on night as an observer in a trauma accident case, and I was merrily chatting away to the anaethetist when this little girl, maybe 8 -9 years old, incredibly beautiful skipped into the room. She stopped, looked at both of us, and at this point the light in the room became 'hyper real' like real sharp, crisp and more 'real' than normal..

She blew a kiss at us both, and waved in a beckoning way to the body on the table... then she skipped out with one hand appearing to hold onto some thing we couldn't see... then the man went into arrest and died very soon after..

Now, im not sure who this girl was, but if she was the grim reaper, well then the gown and scythe is out this year...

We went to the cofee room, sat and had a smoke and a glug of tea, and just looked at each other unsure of what to say - we agreed never to breath a word about this to any one of our colleagues or peers.... so to this day I hold that if there is a reaper, then its a little girl who blows kisses at you if you see her.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
SAINT4GOD ... I had forgotten about that bible quote. That was interesting!

Cool, glad I could help . I think it's ironic that most people are afraid of and flee from the angel of death, you're chasing 'em down. Believers in God tend to do crazy things like this since we're not at risk. I know why though and think it is a noble cause. The Grim Reaper looks more like a job than a specific person/angel. I don't think your friend was imagining...but I do think it's a great opportunity to ask, "So...what is your plan after death? Do you know for certain you'd go to heaven?"

Originally posted by queenannie38
That is Azrael...but all the angels hold a reaper in their hand....all of them. Azrael is doing something else these days....got married and settled DOWN...and changed their name to Azazel.

Oh yes, that's usually part of the career path. Go to angel college, learn a job, find an angelic wife, work for 45 years until retirement kicks in, then go to the beach of the cosmos to play bingo. It must suck to work in heaven, I can see why he needed the break to get away from it all. A good thing they have the Angel Witness Protection Program (AWPP) so that nobody can track him down now with the name change. Oh wait! You can!

[edit on 29-11-2006 by saint4God]

Do you think that this "death Angel" decides who will die and live or do you think "death" is guided by God and does his will?

If death decides for himself I can imagine or accept that maybe he made a mistake and passed over but if he is guided and directed by God it's difficult to think God make a mistake. You know what I'm sayin'...Or maybe God didn't make a mistake and he wanted to make a STRONG statement to your friend.

I'm kinda thinking (if this is all true) that God was purposely making a very powerful statement and your friend should pray on what the message means to him.....now.....or.....asap....

frickin scary if i ever saw death id probably die of fright