Content
Skip to Main ContentAccessibility Help
Tapestry

Learning from the dying: Filmmakers and a creator rethink life after death

If there's one topic that usually sends people recoiling from a conversation, it's death. But for some content creators and filmmakers, that's where the important conversations begin.

Exploring near-death experiences was complicated, met with skepticism, says filmmaker

CBC Radio ·
Woman in a blue long-sleeve shirt with a registered nurse tag clipped to it is talking on the phone. There is a caption at the bottom of the image that reads, "Medical Mysteries I've Witnessed (part 2)."
A still from one of Hadley Vlahos's videos on her Instagram page. Vlahos often shares skits where she re-enacts a scene from her hospice work. (Hadley Vlahos/Instagram)
Tapestry53:52After life: Finding meaning at the end

Hadley Vlahos didn't always believe in the possibility of an afterlife. While interning in an emergency room, Vlahos said she was exposed to "the true horrors of the world."

"All of these nurses were like, 'I don't think that there's any possibility of there being a loving being that would allow these things to happen,' and that made rational sense in my mind," she said in an interview with Tapestry.

"So I stopped believing in anything."

It was hospice work that changed her perspective. 

"I think that it is OK to just say that we don't have all of the answers," said Vlahos, a registered hospice nurse and the author of The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moment.

"But because of the things that I've witnessed, I do have a feeling that there is something beyond this life."

Woman with long brown hair wearing a royal blue shirt smiles into camera.
Vlahos is a hospice nurse, content creator, and author of The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments. (Submitted by Hadley Vlahos)

When it comes to questions about the afterlife, some content creators, like Vlahos, are facing the unexplainable head on and helping people rethink what happens after we die. 

Vlahos, who has over 1.7 million TikTok followers, says she didn't always see her work as something worth sharing. But when she finally addressed her time in hospice care on TikTok, the response surprised her.

"I remember thinking, I don't think anyone cares, and people are gonna think I'm weird," she said. 

"And I think that video got 200,000 views of people saying, 'Please tell me. I had a loved one in hospice or my dad was in hospice, please, I want to hear them.' And I just started sharing stories."

WATCH | Hadley Vlahos re-enacts a scene from her hospice work:

Vlahos says she has been present for many unexplainable experiences with her patients in the weeks or moments before they die, such as a patients experiencing a sudden burst of energy or reporting seeing deceased loved ones.

Near-death experiences 

The sudden death of his brother-in-law raised a lot of questions for Stephen Gray, a filmmaker from Winnipeg, about his faith, his life, and what comes next.  

Man with short dark hair, wearing a black shirt under a blue jacket gently smiles at the camera.
Stephen Gray is a producer, writer, and the director of the film After Death. (Submitted by Stephen Gray)

Gray began looking into studies about near-death experiences — people who report being pronounced medically dead before being revived. After years of research and hundreds of interviews, Gray, alongside his producer Jason Pamer, released their documentary After Death this year. 

Pamer, owner of Sypher Studios, said the people who made it into the final cut were "heavily vetted" in order to make sure "it was as verifiable as possible that they died," and were resuscitated. 

He said the choice to come forward with stories like these was sometimes complicated and difficult. 

"People think you're crazy. Even those closest to you," said Pamer. 

Vlahos said it was difficult at first to let go of her black-and-white mindset where "the world is this way or it's that way, and there's no in-between."

"But for me, I have come to accept that there are things that we will just never be able to explain," she said. 

WATCH | The official trailer for the documentary After Death:

In conversations with people from many different backgrounds, cultures and locations, Gray and Pamer began to notice similarities between their interviewees' stories. The crossover included seeing a deceased loved one, feeling an immense unconditional love, heightened senses, and seeing their life in review. 

Vlahos says those parallels never fail to astound her. "No matter their religious background or any kind of characteristic they have, they all see the same thing." 

"And it's very beautiful to be able to sit with people in that moment and get to experience that with them. I never get tired of it."

While not all of the stories they gathered were positive, both Gray and Pamer say the making of the film has altered their perspective on the here and now. 

"It's given me sort of a renewed hope for today and that my actions, you know, really do matter in eternity," said Pamer. 

Man with short dark hair and a beard, wearing a dark collared shirt smiles at the camera.
Jason Pamer is the owner of Sypher Studios and the producer of the film After Death. (Submitted by Stephen Gray)

For Gray, he says the entire experience has renewed his faith and made it more tangible.

"The takeaway from a lot of these experiences is, especially in their life review, it's like, only God has that perspective of being able to see their life and also the lives of the people around them and how small decisions and big decisions actually have a ripple effect on other people's lives," he said. 

"We don't know where someone's at, in that moment, and the profound impact something even small can have on others."

Written by McKenna Hadley-Burke. Interview with Hadley Vlahos produced by McKenna Hadley-Burke. Interview with Jason Pamer and Stephen Gray produced by Rosie Fernandez.