Note: This post contains mentions of drug use, violence, rape, suicide, and homicide.
Some call death life's greatest mystery, and that's perhaps why we often find it so poignant, intriguing, or even somehow comforting or cathartic to contemplate the final words people share on their deathbeds. Maybe their words offer a sort of final reflection of life — joys and regrets — accompanied by the clarity that comes with death or some sort of insight into the experience of dying. So when u/maaraa_h asked nurses about the most haunting things people have said on their deathbeds, nurses, medical professionals, and individuals who were present when a loved one passed came forward to share their experiences. Here are 59 of their stories:
1. "I'm not a nurse but an EMT-B on the 911 unit. We'd gotten a call about a hit and run, and cops were on the scene first. Some guy and his girlfriend had gotten into a fight in a parking lot. It ended with him running her over, then backing up over her. She wasn't doing well, and her vitals were tanking. We loaded her up, and she kept mumbling, 'Tell my mom. Please, tell my mom.' Naturally, I figured she was asking us to let her mom know she was hurt. The hospital takes care of that, so I put it out of my mind as we were working over her. She flatlined before we arrived. They didn't get her back. My partner was finishing up her paperwork, and we turned to give her wallet back to the staff. The nurse on duty, who I knew well, was reading a dirty piece of paper. She looked disgusted. When I asked what was up, she simply put the piece of paperwork down. It was a letter that was picked up near her purse on the scene. She had gotten accepted into college."
2. "My mom passed from COVID-19. She took a turn for the worse fairly quickly and, unfortunately, never regained consciousness. I was there and holding her hand when she died, and I knew she was at peace. A few days after her funeral, I called my sister's school to update her contact information. The receptionist told me that my mom had called her the day she went into the hospital to let them know my sister would be absent. The receptionist was a friend of hers and wished her well, and she said my mom told her, 'Thank you, but this time, I'm not coming home. I'm going to heaven.' As far as any of us know, this was the last thing she said."
"She was surrounded by our family when she passed, and there was so much love in that room."
3. "Right before my grandma died, her heart rate shot up to the 220s. As the monitor started sounding all sorts of alarms, she yelled out, 'Am I supposed to stop breathing now?!'"
4. "When I was an EMT, we arrived to find an old man who was already dead. He was on holiday with his wife and two adult children. Apparently, that morning, he'd said to his family, 'I'm going to die today.' After he collapsed, he woke up briefly and said, 'See? I told you I was going to die,' before falling unconscious again and passing. His poor son was crying as he said, 'That's dad. Always had to be right.'"
5. "I had to tell my grandmother that dialysis would only give her another week or so to live, and it was her choice to try or not. She was in and out of consciousness at that point, but she was in a clear state for the moment. She asked, 'Will I die?' I said, 'Yes.' She looked me in the eye, smiled just a little, and said, 'Sometimes, you've got to do what you don't want to do.' She closed her eyes, squeezed my hand, and slept until she passed a day later."
6. "I'm not a nurse, but my grandfather was put into a 24/7 care home with severe Parkinson's. My mom and grandma had spent four years basically taking care of him constantly, and they needed a break for a couple of weeks. They visited him every other day in shifts, but I went one day alone. He looked me straight in the eye and said, 'I need you to get me home so I can die, I can't do it here.' I tried saying everything I could to the nurses and my family to get him home without saying what he told me. Twenty-four hours later, he got rushed to the ER. As he was dying, he looked at me and said, 'Don't let it bother you,' and died."
7. "While I was working inpatient in the cardiac unit, we had an old man dying of COPD and heart failure. He had been exhausted and in bed for days — DNR — waiting for the end. One morning at about 2 a.m., he hit his call light. I came in, and he was awake and rearin' to go. 'I'd love a hot shower!' he said with a huge smile. I knew this was his final rally, so I said I needed to get the aide and some supplies. As soon as I was out of his room, I called his family and told them to come immediately. The aide and I helped him with his shower, and he kept saying, 'This is the best I've felt in days!' His final words as we dried him off and got him back in bed were, 'A shower with two babes, this is the life!' Soon after that, his eyes became fixed, and he started his death rattle. He passed maybe five minutes later."
"His daughter arrived maybe twenty minutes too late."
8. "I had a patient whose memory had been fading for years. It's weird, right before a patient dies, sometimes they'll suddenly appear to be doing a lot better. Anyway, he thought I was his late wife. I played along and just listened to him while he recalled his engagement, his wedding, his first childbirth, and a few other memories. At one point, he says, 'Oh! Irene, there you are! Sorry, you know my eyes aren't as good as they used to be. Well, thank you for listening to an old man tell his stories. I hope you have great stories to tell one day, too. I'm coming, Irene.' Then he passed."
9. "She looked at me and said, 'You really are a little pipsqueak.'"
"I was her favorite nurse, too." —u/kratomstew
10. "Many moons ago, when I was a nursing student, a man in his forties was lying on his deathbed from terminal cancer, with his sobbing wife lying in bed next to him. He looked at his wife and, using the last bit of energy he had, gently wiped away her tears and stroked her cheek. He took off his oxygen mask and said, 'Don't worry, love, don't be afraid. It's just death,' and passed shortly after."
11. "I'm a former CNA in the dementia unit of an assisted living facility. 'My dad is on his way to pick me up now,' she said every time I checked on her until she died about a week after it started. While she was still mobile, she would tidy her room, sit on the edge of her bed, and just wait most of the day."
12. "I worked in nursing homes for years. A few weeks before her death, my favorite lady of all time urgently called me into her room. She was crying and panicked, and she said she had to tell me a secret. For backstory, she had a husband who was long deceased, but she loathed him and sometimes even denied she was ever married. Well, she grabbed my hand, pulled me close, and whispered that her husband and his friends had killed a woman and gotten away with it. They were on a boat and said the woman drowned, but she knew it wasn't true. 'She was a young, pretty woman just like you! You have to be careful! Don't tell anyone, they'll get us both, but I had to warn you, darling!' she said. I literally felt shivers up my spine."
"I thanked her for telling me and protecting me, and I told her I'd be safe — all because she cared enough to warn me. I told her she was safe now, too, and she was so relieved."
13. "I started my nursing career on a palliative unit. In my first three months as an RN, I pronounced seven deaths. This one patient had advanced dementia and often believed he was at work while he was awake in the hospital. He would often give us, the nurses and care aides, tasks and jobs to do, as he believed himself to be our superior. One day, near the end of December, he asks me, 'When is New Year's? What day is it this year?' I tell him New Year's will be the upcoming Tuesday. He nods and tells me that he thinks he's going to have to quit after the new year. This job is getting too difficult for him, and he can't keep up. It's time to retire. I tell him we appreciate all the hard work he's done, how we'll miss him terribly when he's gone, and that he was a great employee whom we all loved working with. That Tuesday, January 1, he passed away peacefully in his sleep at 2:00 a.m."
"I will never forget that conversation." —u/myovarieshurt
14. "My grandmother grasped the nurse's hand and said, 'I think I'm going to die now.' The nurse was telling her no, she was doing much better and would likely leave soon, but my grandmother was gone before she could finish her sentence."
"She knew." —u/KneeDragr
15. "'How will I explain this mess?' He asked while pointing to his butt. This lad comes in after a car accident. His work van had flipped and rolled. The fella was wheeled in fully conscious, with no pain (after EMS) or disorientation. However, he was completely twisted in half from the midsection down. There was no way he would survive 'untwisting,' but the blood vessels must have been cinched in such a way that he didn't bleed out. The doctors and nurses explained the situation to him and suggested his family come to say goodbye. He looked like he was lounging on the couch watching TV with a blanket over his lower half. Once the realization set in, he replied with, 'How will I explain this mess?'"
16. "'I'm scared.' He was an elderly gentleman with worsening congestive heart failure who was incapacitated. His wife put him in hospice, and he was comfort measures only. I was at the nurse's station, and I could hear him starting to gasp for air. I walked into the room, and he was struggling to breathe. I put my stethoscope up to his back, but I already knew what was happening. His lungs were full of fluid. I sat him up in bed and he stared at me, eyes wide open, head tilted slightly back, with a facial expression of full-blown panic. 'I'm scared.' Immediately after he said the words, his oxygen mask started filling up with pinkish red frothy foam, running down his face and dripping onto his gown. He was dead within minutes, and all I could do was watch him."
"I will never forget his face." —u/Thiek
17. "I'm a nursing student in Canada, and on my palliative rotation, I had a patient that was getting medically assisted dying the next day. He was an elderly cancer patient. He told me he was a 'self-ordained minister, nothing official — but an at-home type preacher,' and that I could confess to him anything I wanted. I humored him and whispered to him some of my biggest secrets. I figured who cares? He was going to die tomorrow. He told me it was alright, and I could tell he appreciated that I confided in him. He also told me his email address and said that while he would not be sending emails in return, he would be receiving them."
18. "About two minutes before my grandma passed, she had clarity. She'd suffered from severe dementia for years. She opened her eyes and said, 'I found Jack.' Jack was my grandpa who'd died eight years prior. She said they were at a ball with their friends. Then she said, 'I've got to go, he asked me to dance.' Then she was gone."
19. "My patient grabbed my arm, looked me in the eyes, and said, 'Please don't let me die, I have a daughter.'"
20. "My brother couldn't really talk while he was dying, but the look in his eyes before his death rattle will haunt me forever. Whatever he saw…it awed him like a kid seeing Disneyland for the first time. I've never seen a person's eyes go so wide. My guess is he saw the whole damn universe at once."
21. "'I didn't mean to.' We were sending this middle-aged guy home after his ER visit. As soon as we moved him off the bed, he went unresponsive and had no heartbeat. We did a couple of rounds of CPR, and he began to come to. He blinked a couple of times, and the doctor running the code jokingly said, 'Sir, you almost died on us!' The man said, 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to,' in a sad way. His heart then stopped again, and we couldn't get him back."
"It was most likely a saddle pulmonary embolism. He was there for something pretty mild, but he threw a clot right when he was being transferred. If you want to look it up, he had classic cape cyanosis across his chest, which is indicative of a big PE." —u/yourloaclbeertender
22. "When I was 16, I worked in a nursing home. I befriended a man who talked about WW2 and how he'd lost so many guys in his company. One day, he had a stroke. When he returned from the hospital, he couldn't remember anyone but me and told me he wasn't doing good. He knew his time was coming to a close. He said it was time to pay for all the horrible things he'd done in Europe. He wasn't religious but asked me where I thought he was going. I said to bed because it's lights out. He said, 'No, Joe,' my name's Mike, 'I mean up or down.' I'm not a religious person, but I said, 'That's not for me to say.' He laughed and said, 'I know where I'm going. There's only one place for people who have done what I've done...I've killed so many people, Joe. Most of the time, it didn't matter who it was. We went into buildings just shooting. There's only one place for me. It's what I deserve.'"
23. "One guy confessed to me that he was a Nazi war criminal. He didn't have dementia, he was with it, and I don't think he'd ever told anyone else. He was in his mid-90s. I saw he was German, saw his age, and asked if he served in the war, as I'm a former combat arms soldier. He said yes, so I told him that I was in the army myself when I was young and asked some questions about what he did. After a little while, he broke down and talked about his participation in killing Jews in Russia. He was a junior officer in a Wehrmacht unit. He knew he was dying. It all came out, and he cried for a long time: 'I'm nothing but a murderer.' He died a day or so later."
24. "I looked after a guy with end-stage heart failure. He kept having episodes where if he coughed or leaned forward — did anything to increase his intrathoracic pressure — he would pass out. He'd come back after a few minutes and gradually go from purple back to pink, asking, 'How long was I out for that time?' He was fully fine mentally — sharp, witty, and at peace with what was going to eventually happen to him. He and I were joking that one of these episodes was going to kill him as he sipped his tea, talking rubbish. Five minutes later, it happened again, and he didn't come back."
25. "When my mom's friend passed, he had the best last words we've ever heard. The nurse asked him how he was, and he replied, 'I don't know. I've never done this before.' He was a wonderful and hilarious man, and it's only fitting that his last words make us smile."
26. "I used to install medical alarms, and one client — a nice, sweet lady — asked me to call her pastor because she wanted to tell him something. I called him, but he was over two hours away and she said it 'wouldn't be right to do over the phone.' She said, 'Can I tell you then? My first husband would beat and rape me when he was drunk, so when he drank too much I put his gun in his hand and shot him in the head.' I had no idea what to say, so she thanked me and said I was a good kid, closed her eyes, and slumped over."
27. "''Don't leave me alone.'"
28. "Physical Therapist here. I treated a man in his nineties who was a DNR/DNI. At least once a week, when I would go to his room to start our sessions, he would cry and say, 'I didn't want to kill the kids.' After speaking to his nurse, it was revealed that he had killed children in WW2. During a session, he collapsed and said, 'The kids are here to get me.' However, he wasn't displaying fear when he verbalized this after he collapsed. He seemed at peace and died a few minutes later."
29. "I had a patient get diagnosed with a moderately aggressive, but treatable, throat cancer. We tried everything we could think of to get him to consider, but he refused any type of treatment. After three months, his wife had their two adult sons carry him into the office at 4:50 p.m. on a Friday. I was the only nurse in the building and got him into an exam room. He was completely gray and gaunt. You could hear how close the end was every time he breathed. It wasn't exactly a death rattle, but you just knew his lungs were full of fluid. His sons sit him in a chair, and he kept sliding out. I stood between his legs and held him upright in the chair while I told the sons to go get the doctor and told the wife to call 911. We all knew nothing was going to keep the man alive much longer. He patted the side of my leg — it was the most he could move —and whispered, 'I should have listened to you all. I don't want to die.'"
30. "My grandparents passed three days apart from each other. My grandmother was diagnosed with lung cancer. Halfway through her treatment, she told us she felt that her life was fulfilled and she was stopping treatment to pass peacefully. She was on her deathbed for a long time — in and out of consciousness, not communicating often, and only eating ice chips. It tore my grandfather up. He was healthy and in impeccable shape — he went to the gym until he was 90. One day, he was at the grocery store and had a heart attack. He died within minutes. A few days later, my dad and I were sitting with my grandmother. My dad told her that my grandfather was waiting for her whenever she was ready so she wouldn't have to go alone. My grandmother spoke her first words in a week: 'He's right here with me, I see him.' My dad asked, 'What's he wearing?' She giggled, 'He's in my favorite grey suit, I think we're going out.' She passed that evening."
31. "We had a patient with a history of IV drug use who'd been in the unit for over a month. She'd gotten sober months prior but developed endocarditis. She was quiet, sweet, and reserved but always thankful for her care. She had no social support. Her mother was the one who gave her drugs the first time. She had no contact with anyone in her life except one friend who came in weekly to check on her. On her 24th birthday, we got her a cupcake and little presents, hung a banner in her room, and sang her happy birthday. She said thank you but didn't show much emotion. We weren't entirely sure how she felt. That day, she went into cardiac arrest and died. We spent 45 minutes trying to get her back. Her friend came in to collect her things and showed us the message she'd sent that day. It was a picture of the cupcake, presents, and banner and said, 'I love my nurses. I don't know how to tell them, but they're the best family I've ever had.'"
32. "A paramedic I know once told me that a man was dying and saw a clock that was set to a different language in which December is abbreviated as 'Ded.' He said, 'Is God fucking with me right now?'"
33. "While in hospice, my grandma said to me, 'There are a great many things in this world worse than dying.' She then talked about how lucky she was to have lived the life she did. I had never looked at death like that before and that conversation truly changed me and my outlook."
"She was the most wonderful person." —u/feddeftones
34. "My great uncle's last words before he passed were, 'It is what it is.' I know it's really common, but I find myself saying it quite a lot nowadays. It is what it is."
35. "When I was a cardiac ICU nurse, a woman in her 80s came in for decompensated heart failure. She refused a BiPap and intubation, so she wore a non-rebreather instead. At one point, the doctor asked her, 'What can we do for you? You've refused everything, and I'm not sure what else we can offer you.' She responded, 'What's the point of living when all my family members and friends died before me?' Several hours later, while the float nurse in charge of her was at lunch, I happened to walk by her room as she pressed her call bell. We made eye contact and, though she wasn't my patient, I offered her help. She just kept taking her mask off and mumbling, and every time I tried to put it back on, she'd take it off again. Finally, I grabbed her hand and told her, 'If you need to go see your families and friends, you can go.' She looked at me, took a big breath, and passed away right in front of my eyes."
"It wasn't really haunting, but the look she gave me...I could see her soul leaving, kind of like staring at a doll's eyes."
36. "My brother was with a friend of his when the friend had a massive heart attack. While waiting for an ambulance, the guy suddenly shouted, 'Oh, it's coming,' then looked my brother dead in the eyes and said, 'It was nice to know you.' He died less than 30 seconds later."
37. "When my great uncle was on his deathbed, he asked the nurse, 'Hey, can you do me a favor and go get my car keys? I'm ready to go.' The nurse went to get the keys, and he died before she got back with them."
38. "Seconds before his blood pressure plummeted and he could no longer sustain consciousness, he yelled, 'Come and get me then!' We did not get him back."
39. "There was an elderly gentleman who'd come from at-home hospice with stage 4 cancer. During moments of lucidity, he'd express guilt over the pain he was causing his loved ones. He never once complained of pain and denied pain medication because 'someone else would need it.' On his last night, he said: 'I want this to be my final lesson to my family. I want to show them how to die with dignity.' Moments later, he asked if I could tell him it was ok to die — to find peace and rest. He said he couldn't bear the thought of his family seeing him die. He wanted to hold on because he was their support system, but his pain was too much. He was ready. I told him he didn't need to keep fighting for his family's comfort. If he was truly in pain and ready to go, it'd be ok to die. His family would understand. Once I gave him the 'ok,' he started the process: delirium, heavy breathing, fidgeting, and then death rattle. Then, he was gone."
40. "My mom told me that my grandma's last words were, 'Want to hear a joke?' Then a long beep was the only noise that filled the room."
41. "I worked as a nurse's aide in a nursing home. A gentleman in hospice was assigned to my caseload, and one night, he seemed off. I explained what I was doing to care for him, but he sounded so angry and confused. I was new, so I didn't know what to do and pressed on. He got so freaked out that he took his oxygen tube and tried to wrap it around my throat to strangle me. I got away, told the nurse, and was told that confusion and aggression were common when people were dying. Regardless, he needed his care. I went to him a few hours later, and he looked so docile and defeated. His eyes filled with tears as he looked at me and said, 'I'm real sorry for what I did earlier, ma'am, that's not who I am. I'm so sorry.' I told him it was okay, and that I just wanted to make him comfortable. He thanked me and said, 'I'm going home.' He kept repeating it and sounded so urgent. I thought he was still confused. He passed away 1.5 hours later."
42. "'I'm going to die. I know I'm going to die.' He was going for very routine, fairly minor surgery. I held his hand and told him he would be fine. He died shortly after the procedure."
43. "I heard my patient talking to herself, so I went in to check on her. She said she was talking to her deceased husband and asked, 'You don't see him? He's sitting in the chair.' That sent a chill down my spine, and then she coded a few minutes later."
44. "'You know what's funny? Everyone says living is the hard part. No, dying is much much harder than living.' A cancer patient in their forties, who was incredibly active and athletic up until their diagnosis, said this to me as a student in my hospice clinical. It stuck with me ever since."
45. "I worked in a nursing home, and a lot of the people who were dying saw their spouses who had passed before them. One lovely old lady once said her husband was in the room. When I told her it was ok to go with him, she said, 'Oh my god, no, I hate him! I'm scared of him!' She then started to cry. All I could do was hold her hand and tell her I would send him away. She passed very shortly after that with a smile on her face."
"I hope he wasn't there for her." —u/msmojo
46. "When my sister was on her death bed, she would point and ask who the people were in her room, but no one else was there. I'd then see her having conversations with these invisible people. I finally asked her what she was talking about and with whom. She said she was talking to our grandfather, who'd died 20 years prior, and that he'd told her he was there to help her cross over. She told him she wasn't ready to go, and he told her that it has to be her decision. When she's ready to take his hand, he will guide her across."
47. "My great grandmother got sick when she was about 94. She had a flu and a really bad fever. I remember her crying and yelling the name Fritz: 'I can see Fritz!' Fritz was her brother who passed away when he was five, almost a century beforehand."
48. "One night, I was giving an elderly lady (who was pleasantly confused) a bath, and I asked how she was doing. She goes, 'I'm a DNR, baby, I'm doing just fine.' She passed 30 minutes later."
49. "'I'm only 18.' That shit never leaves you. She had skin cancer all over from a childhood event — her cousin had pushed her into boiling water — and she eventually couldn't even roll over without writhing in pain. It was the worst experience of my life."
"I shortly left inpatient nursing after that." —u/UrethralTrauma9000
50. "My spouse's grandfather passed away last autumn. He was a biologist and loved nature. Before he passed away, he had explained he had seen another dimension and how all life was connected. He told his children that he wished they would meet again, as molecules, in a flower. I thought these things were beautiful and reflected well on his life as someone who dedicated his time to learning about nature and its wonders."
51. "A family friend had a very young niece who was dying from cancer. Her parents were there to comfort her in the final hours, and one of the last things she asked was, 'How do I die?'"
52. "When my grandpa was dying, he was in full-blown Sundowners. He wasn't coherent, couldn't really speak except in the early mornings, and was hallucinating all sorts of things like dead family members. Most of his communication was just paranoia about the nurses trying to kill him. I was a young teen, so my mom didn't really want me to be around him when he was like this. The last time I saw him, something clicked on in his head. It's like he fought through the cloud of unreality in his head, made direct eye contact with me, and grabbed my hand. 'Determination, that's what's important,' is all he said, but it was like he knew it was the last time he would see me. It was like someone said, 'Alright, you've got four words, make them count.' Immediately after that, he went back to a semi-vegetative state and reverted to mumbling. He died not long after that, and those words have pulled me through some of my toughest days."
"It was like the last lesson he had for me, and he had to tell me this. It took me a long time to really understand those words, but I faked it until I made it. Thanks, grandpa. You were the best." —u/Aledeyis
53. "I'm a hospice chaplain and worked in a hospital for a time. There was a spiritual, non-religious man I had a good connection with. He requested that I come to his room. When I did, he motioned for me to crouch by his bed and spoke in a whisper: 'Do you see my brother in the corner?' I told him I didn't but believed he was seeing him. He was completely lucid and calmly explained that his brother had been in the corner talking with him, hashing things out and coming to forgiveness like they weren't able to do before his brother died. He worried the nurses would think he was crazy and try to medicate him. When I assured him I believed him and just wanted to listen to what he had to say, he went on: 'I see Death, too. She was in the parking lot, I could see her from my window. She had my brother with her. Now, she's in the room. She's all black but…she ain't ugly.' He was totally at peace. He died a few days later."
54. "I do know my father's (possibly) last words. I wasn't there, but he called me and left me a long voicemail. It was the middle of the night, so I was passed out. It all boiled down to him apologizing for a fight we had months before, after which we didn't talk for a while. The final words I have recorded before he hung up were, and I quote, 'I hope you don't blame yourself for what is going to happen, but I think this is the end for me. I'm sorry I couldn't talk to you one last time.' He committed suicide within an hour of that voicemail, according to the coroner's report."
"I was only 17 at the time. When I woke up the next morning, it was too late to call him back. It may not be haunting to most, but it does haunt me to this day, and I still blame myself because I could tell from his voice that that fight was still weighing on him." —u/unusedwings
55. "My grandmother said, 'Let's get this over with,' right before she passed on."
56. "I work in a nursing home, and one that sticks out for me was, 'My kids left me here to die. May that not happen to you, son.'"
57. "I had a lady tell me in her confused state that her husband 'disappeared' after years of domestic violence. I didn't understand what she meant, so I expressed my condolences and asked where she think he went. All she said was, 'Underground.' I didn't ask any more questions after that and never did see her again. Apparently, she passed shortly after."
58. "My grandfather told me he killed my mom's first husband with a bat at his apartment, rolled him up in a carpet, and dumped him in a dumpster. Since they all used to hang out in a big group in high school, I asked my dad what happened to Bob, and my dad told me after my mom left him, he just...disappeared."
59. "I'm an ER doctor. An old lady had had a big heart attack and refused treatment, so we made her comfortable by giving her morphine and benzos for her shortness of breath. While she was in the process of dying — I was with her and the family providing comfort — her daughter said to her, 'Just let go, mum.' The old lady opened her eyes one last time, looked at her daughter, and said, 'What do you think I've been trying to do?' She passed away a short time later."
