I've experienced a lot of paranormal things but nothing like what my husband and his family experienced in the following story.
Around the time that me and my now husband were just starting to date, one of his oldest nephews (18) had just landed in the hospital due to his treatments for Leukemia. Sadly none of his treatments were working, they were just making things worse. He lost all his hair and kept throwing up uncontrollably. Soon after, he was put in a machine to help him breathe as he had stopped breathing on his own.
My husband lived at his older brother's house at the time. He slept in the same bedroom as his younger nephews. He said the night before the doctors had told his sister to unplug his nephew from the ventilator to see if he could breathe on his own, everyone in that home was awaken by the radio being turned on to Max volume. When they all went out to investigate what caused it to turn on, a soccer ball came rolling from the closet at the end of the hallway. That soccer ball was actually his nephew's. They all looked at each other and thought of him. The next day they took him out of the ventilator and wasn't able to breathe on his own and the line immediately went flat. That month the entire family gathered for Christmas and all talked about him.
When my husband talked about the weird incident he had at his brother;s house, his older brother joined in and said "yea it's as if he came home from school one last time, turned on the radio full blast and took the soccer ball to go out and play with my kids." The rest of my husband's brothers and sisters all looked shocked and either them or their kids had experienced something similar. They all concluded that it was in fact him saying his last goodbyes.
The saddest one I heard that night was that of his younger sister who said she was about to go to sleep and heard his brother yell out her name like he usually did to close the door after him when he would leave to the park to play soccer with his cousins. She totally freaked out because she knew he was at the hospital but immediately felt a great sadness fill her up and knew he was saying his last goodbyes to her.
It's amazing how he managed to contact his entire family here the night before and say his final goodbyes one way or the other. Honestly when he passed away the whole family cried, but it was weird at the moment because they all went up to him one by one and said see you later, they knew it was him the night before saying goodbye like any other normal day that he visited them.
To this day none of them speak of him like he is actually gone. I think that last farewell he gave them that night made them be at peace with his passing the next day. It's been 6 years and we still love talking about how he was awesome enough to say his goodbyes to all of them.:)
I just had my story published today entitled The "Departure".
The title of my story led me to yours. It is very interesting that we used the same word to describe the event. In hind sight, I wish I had asked for at least the name of the "Host" ghost. Maybe, even taken pictures? But, at moments like that, you can't imagine what is going to happen next. Trying to be prepared is impossible unless a person has had numerous encounters. Well, your story was a good one, and certainly backs mine up. Thank you, Mike