The Last Goodbye: An NDE of Love and Choice

Intro

What if the last hug you gave turned out to be the last one you would ever give? What if a single sleepy blink on a long drive changed everything you thought you knew about guilt, God, and love?

This is Jeffrey Olson’s near-death experience, told in his own words. He was a husband, a dad of two boys, a guy driving home after Easter weekend in the red rock country of Utah. Before he pulled away, his wife Tamara felt a sudden nudge to run back and kiss her parents again. It would be the final goodbye.

Crossing Over

Jeffrey and his family were headed north on the interstate. The cruise control was set at 75mph and it was just sunlight and wind ahead of them. His two boys were in the back, one asleep, one playing with action figures. Jeffrey glanced in the rearview mirror and felt a rush of gratitude. Griffin’s eyelashes. Spencer’s laughter. Tamara’s hand still folded into his, ten years into marriage.

It was a perfect moment on an incredible day. Until it wasn't.

Jeffrey believes he briefly nodded off. The SUV he was driving swerved, over-corrected, and rolled six to eight times. When the wreck stopped, Spencer was crying. Tamara and Griffin were gone. Jeffrey was pinned, lungs struggling, bones shattered, the world shrunk to gasoline and glass. In that chaos, light came. It surrounded him. He felt himself rise, pain slipping away while awareness sharpened into something diamond clear.

In the light, Tamara appeared. Radiant. Whole. She told him he could not stay. He had to go back, because a little boy would be orphaned if he didn’t. Together, they made a choice. He would return. Thought became movement. Intention became gravity. He found himself moving through a hospital, seeing people with a strange and tender x-ray of the heart, knowing their hopes, their hurts, their choices, and loving them without condition. He saw a body he felt nothing from, stepped closer, and realized it was his. He chose to go in. He went back.

Jefferey Olsen:
“There was nothing but love. No judgment. A knowing that everything was held, even my worst moments, in a love that would not let me go.”

Encounters and Messages

Jeffrey later learned that while he was being treated, an ER physician named Dr. Jeff O’Driscoll and a nurse both reported seeing Tamara in the trauma bay. She expressed gratitude for their efforts to save Jeffrey’s life. It mirrored the choice Jeffrey had made with her moments before.

Months in the hospital were brutal. Pain pressed him out of his body at times, as if he had to step away just to breathe. One night, sleep finally came, and with it the light again. This time, he felt at home. He ran with two whole legs. He was led down a corridor to a crib. Griffin lay there as he had in the rearview mirror, lashes resting on his cheeks, breath warm against Jeffrey’s neck as he lifted him. A Presence approached from behind, immense and intimate. He feared judgment. He hoped for forgiveness. Arms gathered father and son. The message came like a flood of peace. There was nothing to forgive. Everything stood inside a perfect order he could not break.

Then came the life review. Not a trial. A teaching. He saw the fracture of his parents’ divorce, the insecurities it seeded, the brothers who steadied him. Every painful scene carried a question. What did you learn. Who have you become because of it. The Presence called him into radical honesty without shame. He could rage at God for life, or rage at himself for life, and still be loved. Free will was not a loophole. It was the point. He was invited to make a choice in love. Hand Griffin back. Trust. Let go. He did. And he woke in the same broken body, with a different heart.

Return

Returning meant surgeries, an amputation above the knee, a colostomy, braces, and a wheelchair. It also meant a reunion he dreaded and longed for. When he finally came home, Spencer ran past him, not away but door to door. Come out. My dad made it home. He then leaped onto Jeffrey’s lap and said a line that still makes them both laugh twenty-five years later.

"Dad, if you were nothing but a puddle of blood, I would still love you."

Reflections

Jeffrey’s takeaway is simple and demanding. Life is not a test. Life is a gift. Emotions are gifts too, even the ones that sting. Make the call. Say the words. Kiss the parents one more time. All there is is love. Even grief is love, shaped like an ache.

Key Takeaways

• Jeffrey experienced a loving presence that said there was nothing to forgive, then saw a life review focused on learning rather than judgment.
• He was invited to exercise free will by releasing his son in trust, which transformed how he lived afterward.
• His surviving son’s fierce love grounded the return to ordinary life.

Curious about my writing process? Learn how I made this post.

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