The Final Breath: A Strange Presence Before a Family Death

Jet (0:01)

We both stopped dead in our tracks because we didn't know what it was. Again, we could have been being hunted by a mountain lion or something.

Edwin Covarrubias (0:13)

She says that she has seen strange shadows attached to people since childhood. But one encounter during her great uncle's final days left her wondering if she had witnessed death itself.

My name is Edwin, and here's Jet's True Scary Story.

Jet (0:37)

My name is Jet. This story starts back in 2011 We had gone to Georgia one Christmas because my great uncle was not doing well. He was in the end stages of dementia and was just not doing his best. So we decided to come out during our Christmas break and spend Christmas with the family and be there if he did happen to pass, or even if he didn't, at least get to see him one more time. This particular story, I have not shared with anybody outside of family. So this is my first time really sharing it with anybody.

I remember when we first got there, the whole environment just felt heavy. We had left Colorado super early in the morning. My younger brother and I were super excited because we're going to Georgia. We get to spend our first Christmas in Georgia. It was going to be a fun trip regardless of the outcome.

We get there, we get in the car, we drive to the town which is called Fort Valley. It's in central Georgia. We get to my aunt's house, my great aunt's house, and like I said, the environment is just really heavy. We greet my great aunt, my grandmother was there, both my great aunt's daughters were there.

All the whole family, we gathered, we ate a bunch of food and my aunt sent us to the back to go say hello to my great uncle who was passing.

He was not conscious, he was not awake, but he could tell we were there. He would move his fingers when we squeezed his hands and he acknowledged our presence. And that was a really scary time for me because again, I was only about 11 years old. I didn't really have any kind of concept of death or dying or anything like that. So this was really my first brush. And he stayed about comatose like that for a couple of days until about two days before Christmas.

He is up and moving and wanting to get into his wheelchair and talking. And all the adults are confused. All the adults are confused. And me and my brother are just like, Uncle Bill's up and doing great. Wow, this is cool. This trip's gonna be even better than we thought. You know, he ate a bunch of food. He laughed and we made jokes with us, you know, the best way he could. His communication wasn't great, but he was doing a lot better than he had been. And then the next day it took that turn that usually happens, you know, when someone's not doing so good. They get a burst of energy and they deteriorate a couple of days later. He was basically comatose at that point. We had a preacher come and pray over the family. And when this preacher came, the whole household energy shifted from that heavy like, you know, somebody's dying feeling that was in the air. It became a lot lighter and a lot happier. My mom and her cousins were actually at ease, which my mom's side of the family, they're always at each other's throat. I love them to pieces, but they are. They don't get along, and the fact that everybody was calm and getting along and just having a good old time was really surprising to me.

But we get into the room, we're all standing around, my great uncle, we're holding hands, we close our eyes for the prayer. And about halfway through, something in my mind just told me I needed to open my eyes. Like, I could not focus on keeping my eyes shut. So I opened them, and when I opened them, there was a shadow that was cast over the whole room. It was daylight outside, it was not cloudy, it was really sunny, you know, nice Georgia, 75 degrees in the middle of winter. Everybody else is still standing there with their eyes closed, and I'm looking around, and I look above my great uncle, and I see what I can only describe as a big, dark, shadowy mass. It didn't have a form, it didn't take a shape, it just was a big shadow standing over my uncle's deathbed. And I remember seeing this, and my whole body going into panic, like I shouldn't have opened my eyes, I did something wrong. I stared at this figure for a few minutes before I realized that it acknowledged me. It turned itself towards me, like, what are you doing? Why are you able to see me? And I got nervous, and I closed my eyes again.