People who "almost die" experience lack of oxygen and other chemical changes.
Such events are not a passage to reality, just the opposite.
You are quite wrong, SkyWriting. The English air-traffic controller, Alan Pring, did suffer serious oxygen deprivation as a pilot during WWII, and disposes of the conjecture very unambiguously.
Bethann, there are a fair number of very impressive NDEs, you can watch, notably on YouTube. In some of them, relatives greet them in a sort of Paradise they live in, pending the Final Judgment, which I have read, would be the most overtly-glorious end of the Purgatory spectrum. .
My brother, Barry, appeared at the bedside of my sister, Annabelle, for about two minutes, when she was very ill and awaiting a kidney transplant operation. I only learnt about it by chance from my mother some time later. My sister was clearly very undemonstrative about it, as she and my brother were about 'religion' in general. Anyway, I asked her about it, and she said Barry didn't say a word (nor did she presumably), but he just looked at her as if to encourage her. He'd looked very solid - she said she felt she could have stretched out her hand and touched him - then he gradually faded. She died recently without fear, feeling ready for it, after a few more years of dialysis, having lost the transplanted kidney after 19 years. But with all their appointments she and her husband, John, were attending the hospital and various clinics almost every other day. And I believe that that was at least part of the reason for her upbeat departure. Of course, she would have felt for John and their son, Carl, but it wasn't worth hanging on for a dodgy operation, with her organs failing, generally.
The Catholic church's enduring protection of sound, core, Christian doctrine is a bit of a two-edged sword. There is so much encouragement to be had, not from necromancy and psychic consultation and events, which, evidently can be dangerous, and in any case, are clearly proscribed in Scripture. I know of many good women who have been to public seances, as widows, nevertheless, and surely because of their ignorance of the danger, were protected by God and is angels ; which of course, is not a 'green light' for us to do so. But when ghosts of loving family members and/or friends appear to us, we should accept such visitations with gratitude, as a consolation and encouragement for us, sanctioned by God, as part of his providential dispensation.
My advice would be to rejoice in any apparitions by your Mum, or communications with her.
Bethann, we Roman Candles have come to terms with the truth that we are a church of sinners. Jesus' local synagogue-congregation tried to throw him over a cliff. Your mother was human, and she would have known our proclivity for sin, so just be pleased she got in touch.
