How Her Sister's Death Strengthened Elizabeth Lesser's Belief in an Afterlife

In January 2015, Elizabeth's younger sister Maggie lost her long battle with lymphoma. Maggie "took her leave," as Elizabeth describes her passing, at home, surrounded by friends and loved ones, including her two children, Norah and Hayden. In the days leading up to her death, Elizabeth says, her view of death changed as she watched Maggie prepare for the inevitable.

Elizabeth observed something shift in Maggie when she finally knew that she was going to die. "Even when all signs are pointing, 'You're going to die,' you don't believe it," she says. "She was in her full, right mind, and so I watched her become not only accepting of death but ready for it—almost excited for it."

"Really," Oprah says.

"She was not a believer in any way, shape or form," Elizabeth says. "But she began to say things, like, 'See that break in the clouds? That's where I'm going.' And her sense of death changed, and it really gave me a stronger faith that we go somewhere afterwards."