Kate. A high-powered executive, knows her last battle has been lost, and she prepares to die. Surrendering to the inevitable, she closes her eyes to blackness… and is suddenly enveloped in an incredible, blinding light. Surrounded by a landscape of incredible beauty and a feeling of peace and safety, she wishes to stay in this place forever. Instead, she wakes to discover her pain is gone, her cancer-ravaged body healed, and hew view of life forever changed. Investigative journalists Lionel C. Bascom and Barbara Loecher have interviewed some of the ten million Americans from all walks of life whose lives have been changed by Near Death Experiences. While each person tells a different and astonishing story, there experiences contain striking similarities … and all agree that to come back from the dead is to be truly touched by the light, a gift that was heaven sent.. Prof. Lionel C. Bascom has written numerous histories, non-ficiton books and literary collections. He is a professor in the Department of Writing, Linguistics and Creative Process at Western Connecticut State University and a two-time member of the Pulitzer Prize Jury in Journalism at Columbia University. His books include The Last Leaf of Harlem: A Collection of Dorothy West Stories; A Renaissance in Harlem: The Lost Voices of An African American Community.