We were absolutely moved by so many of your amazing responses on Facebook to our 25 Last Words From Patients That Will Make You Smile, Shiver, and Laugh Out Loud article.
In many ways, I found your comments to be even more visceral and touching than the original article.
Thank you to all of our fans who shared such personal and heartfelt memories with us:
#1. Dang…
My ornery Grandmother’s last words to her daughter, my aunt:
She beckoned her closer, and my aunt leaned in to hear her…
Then, she said, ” Mary, You Look Fat as a House.”
#2. “How did I know that?”
Photo Credit: Pixabay/CC0
When is was 14 the telephone rang, and I said, “Oh my god, grandma just died.”
Mother answered to be told her mother-in-law had passed away.
I didn’t know she was sick.
When we got to the hospital the nurse said grandma had reached her hand out and said, “I’m coming Lord,” and passed away.
How did i know that?
#3. “I’m here.”
My brother was dying of cancer, and I was heartbroken.
I was awakened by my mother one morning, (she had been dead for many years), saying to me, “Don’t worry. I’m here.”
The phone immediately rang and my sister-in-law told me my brother had just died.
He and our Mom were very close.
#4. The Choir
My grandmother was dying at home.
My mother was a young woman and was sitting by her bed when she said, “Oh, isn’t that beautiful music, Frannie?”
My mother (Fran) said, “I don’t hear any music, Mom.”
Grandma said, “Oh, it is so beautiful.”
She died shortly after that.
I think she heard the heavenly choir welcoming her home.
#5. “Go away.”
My mom was in the last hours of her life. I told her I was going to go and get my dad (2 miles away), and she looked up at the corner of the ceiling and said, “Go away; not yet.”
An hour later her 2 grandchildren were coming an hour and a half away. I told her to hang on.
She was getting weaker and looked in the corner and mouthed, “Go away.”
They came; she squeezed their hands, then died 15 minutes later.
#6. 10 Days
My uncle was having stomach issues. The doctors said he had a tumor. Come to find out it was cancer, when they went in to take it out, and it was everywhere.
They said there was nothing they could do and told our family he had 6 months.
When he came-to he said, “I have 10 days.”
His sisters happened to be in from out of state and went to visit him in the hospital. While there, his step daughter had a baby.
Since it was at the same hospital, they got special permission to bring her down, so he could she his granddaughter.
At this point he was real bad and was unable to move or talk.
He looked at my mom with a tear in his eye, and she told him, “It is okay. We love you. Go ahead.”
He squeezed her hand, closed his eyes, and passed away.
It was 10 days after the surgery just like he said it would be.
#7. “Come on.”
My mother was a strong-willed woman who lived alone in her home until she had a heart attack.
The damage was severe, and she was on a ventilator. She never wanted that, and when I came in the ICU, she pointed at me and at the machine, and I knew she wanted off.
I had a moment of weakness and begged her to try, because I knew if the machine was removed, she would die. She shook her head and repeated her motions of before.
The staff removed the vent, and she was moved to a regular room and placed on hospice. The doctors said she would die within 6 hours, but she wanted to see her grandson who was in the navy.
After he arrived, she slipped into a semi-coma. She would rouse up and look at the ceiling and motion to the ceiling and say, “Come on, come on…”
My sisters and brother and I took turns staying with her all night for 3 nights. When I arrived on Sunday morning for my turn, I whispered in her ear, “It’s OK mom. We are ready. You can go.”
She immediately stopped breathing and was gone.
What a peaceful death of a wonderful woman who was very much loved. This was in 2002.
I miss her and dad more every day.
I know they will come for me when it is my time. I find great comfort in that.
#8. Louisiana Tone
I was little when my grandmother passed.
That night, she looked at her roommate, (she was in assisted living), and said, “I’m going home tonight, baby,” as only she could say in her Louisiana tone…
She passed that night.
#9. “Growing older brings on thoughts of death.”
When my mother told me she had repeatedly seen herself dead in a coffin, I brushed it off and said something like, “Growing older brings on thoughts of death.”
She died a week later.
I read a book about death and dying and learned from a known religious philosopher, Carl Jung, that every living creature from bugs to humans get a signal that they are about to die whether it’s in a week or a day.
#10. “What went wrong?”
My husband went to the hospital for what we thought was a routine angiogram.
The procedure went horribly wrong and he went many minutes with little blood going to his heart.
The last thing he communicated to me was in the form of a note:
“What went wrong?”
8 days later, he died.
#11. Blue Jays
Photo Credit: Pixabay/CC0
My bumpa (grandfather) had severe dementia when he died. My Nana died of pancreatic cancer in July of 2009 and my bumpa started to decline pretty quickly after that.
The day he died, we were all gathered around his bed at the hospice place, and I was looking out the window watching a blue jay.
I hate hospitals no matter what form.
My bumpa all the sudden starting talking to what we were all pretty sure was my Nana.
Then he died, and another blue jay showed up to join the first one.
He died November 2009. Every time I see two blue jays, I think of my grandparents.
The doctors said he died of starvation because he refused to eat, but we all know he died of a broken heart, and he just wanted to be with Nana again.
#12. Smile
My mom was dying from her 5th cancer battle. She’d been asleep most of the day, she opened her eyes, looked beyond us, smiled like she was seeing something beautiful, and was gone.
#13. “Turn off the light, already.”
Christmas Eve Eve in Mexico. My 83 yr old grandfather was gravely ill.
At 2am, he kept telling my aunt to, “Turn off the light, already.”
My aunt put thick blankets over the windows, thinking he was seeing Christmas lights from the neighbor’s house.
He repeated his request. My aunt said, “Dad, the room is pitch black…?”
He just grunted and remained silent.
15 min later, his faithful Chihuahua Dulce left his side of the bed, hopped up to his feet ON THE BED and howled a howl my aunt will never forget.
She howled and cried and would not stop.
My aunt checked my grandfather… he had just passed.
He finally turned off that light!
Miss you, abuelo!
#14. “Not sure…”
My family and I aren’t really religious. Never have been.
My great uncle had very aggressive prostate cancer. We were told his death could be imminently awaiting as his health was deteriorating in such a hasty manner.
That one day in hospice, it had been raining all day.
He was a very sarcastic, funny man; it’s one of those quick-wit qualities we both shared.
I’ll never forget while it was storming, there were moments where he was in and out of it. When he was lucid, everything seemed like it was okay.
It was late in the night, all you could hear was the strong rain.
I remember asking him what he thought would happen when the time came, and with a big smile he said, “Not sure, but if I could haunt you until you finish law school, that’d be great.”
We laughed for a bit, but he looked like his body wanted to rest. That tired, pale look.
I told him to get some rest, that I’d be haunting him in the morning.
He passed within hours.
I tried to practice law, but I get chills and become overly emotional. I switched careers, and I’ve had the dream so vividly of that night everytime I see the picture he and I took for my 3rd birthday as a kid.
#15. “Simple” and “Astounding”
I had the death experience–was gone for 21 minutes on 06/26/11.
Couldn’t talk about it for almost two years afterwards, because I’d start crying, and I am a life-hardened private detective.
The reason I cried is– it was so beautiful and loving.
One moment you’re here, and the next you’re just there, but thoughts and love are connected to everyone.
Just like we know a baby is being born over here, they know that we’re coming.
The best terms I can use to describe the experience are: “Simple” and “Astounding.”
#16. “Thank God.”
My dad had a disease called MSA. He went into the hospital in July of 2012.
We knew he was not coming home.
I was called in to come home as dad was really not doing well. That day I got to the hospital my Aunt said, “He has the ‘death rattle.'”
I had never heard of this, but labored breathing is a sign the end is near.
The nurse asked if we wanted to bring in the Hospital Chaplain. None of us are religious, everyone said no.
But my young nephew and I said okay. So, the three of us went up to sit with dad and listen to the Chaplain.
She said, “Gary, I understand you had a great life, beautiful family but I fear the end is very near.”
My dad yells out clear as a bell, “Thank God.”
My dad had not spoken for two days prior to this, and when he did speak, the disease made it hard to understand him.
About two hours later, we left the room to grab a bite to eat. He passed within minutes of us leaving that room.
To this day I think of that.
He was ready to go.
He fought a five year battle with such dignity.
#17. “No. He said he’s here for you.”
My previous wife died of cancer in 1997.
She was on high doses of morphine to control the pain and morphine causes hallucinations, so I ignored much of what she said she saw while lying in her bed.
The day before she died, she was in a rare, lucid state when she said to me, “Who is this old man standing at the foot of my bed?”
I blew it off as another hallucination. She then repeated her question.
I then asked her, “Well, who does he look like to you?”
She described the old man as having white hair and wearing a light blue shirt. She then said he was smiling at her.
I turned to look at her and asked, “Well, is he here for you?”
She then paused as if she were listening to him speak, then turned to me and said, “No. He said he’s here for you.”
My eyes welled up with tears when I realized the old man was my grandfather, who always wore light blue shirts. We were very close, but he died in 1980 when I was 13.
Later that night, she turned and said goodbye to me, saying she’d be gone before I saw her again.
That was disturbing, but I got some much-needed sleep that night.
I heard her mother talking with her in the next room when I awakened, so I figured her prediction was wrong and that I’d go in to be with her after brushing my teeth.
However, she passed in those few minutes I took to get ready.
She said to her mom, “Tell Darrin that John was here to see him again.”
John was my grandfather’s first name.
We were only married two years, and I had never once spoken of my grandfather to my wife.
Not once.
