People sometimes come out with some pretty funny or straight up bizarre last words while on their deathbed. And occasionally, people make pretty crazy confessions right before passing on. Here are Reddit’s best stories of the most interesting deathbed confessions ever.
1. Killer grandma
[rtk_adunit_top]
My grandma confessed to murder on her deathbed. Usually you’d think it was the pain relief, but she was such an eccentric it was actually believable.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
We traced all her ex-husbands, partners and any other likely candidates and fortunately no one was missing or died an untimely death, but sometimes I wonder…
2. Kind words
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
My dad had Alzheimer’s and ended up in a secure ward. He was blind and almost deaf. I was visiting him one day. He didn’t know who I was, but he started talking about me. He said I had done better than him in life and that he was proud of me. He was a quiet man in real life and never told me that when I was growing up.
[rtk_adunit_top]
Looking back, he did things that I never realised were for me. Like, when he retired his colleagues asked what he’d like as a present. He chose a scientific calculator (this was back in the 1970’s). He had no use for it. He gave it to me for university. I thought he was just passing it on, not realising that he’d asked for it with me in mind.
3. Long-lost aunt
[rtk_adunit_middle]
A couple of days before my grandmother passed away she was really confused and was talking about my mother having a child a year or so after my own birth that was sent for adoption. She was talking about how sad and horrible this was and that I deserved to know.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
After my grandmother passed I confronted my mom about it and she denied this, and I truly believed her. Couple of months later it came out that my grandmother was the one who adopted away a baby girl who was born between my mother and aunt.
4. Invisible sons
[rtk_adunit_top]
My great uncle actually confessed to having two illegitimate sons right before he kicked the bucket in front of his own children and grandchildren. The crazy thing was that none of his children knew about this life of his. Not even my great aunt knew about it because she would have made a huge fuss if she was alive at that time and knew about it.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
What was crazier was that these two sons already passed away five and seven years ahead of him respectively. He was 98 years old and his “invisible” sons were 65 and 69 years old. The children found out that one of his invisible sons actually was a teacher at a school that his granddaughters attended when they were in high school. Nevertheless, his children decided to reach out to the children of his invisible sons. They got connected and learned more stuff about my great uncle.
5. Quite the revelation
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
I didn’t see it, but my aunt watched her elderly mother fall down the stairs and confess just before she died that she wasn’t her biological mother.
[rtk_adunit_top]
She told my aunt that her oldest sister was actually her mother. The sister had gotten pregnant too young and the mom said it was hers. A common way of handling it back then. She revealed it in her very last breath.
6. Devastating
[rtk_adunit_middle]
My husband had a cardiac event that required an ambulance. As the ambulance was arriving I asked him if the code to open his phone was XXXX, he said yes, then looked up at me and said “I am so sorry”. He had successful surgery, but had several strokes on the operating table and was taken off life support after 7 days.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
When I opened his phone I found out he was having an affair. The same code to his phone also opened his laptop where I found telephone recordings of he and his girlfriend, as well as screenshots of their chats. I don’t know how interesting this is, but it was certainly devastating to me.
7. War crimes
[rtk_adunit_top]
My granduncle admitted to killing POWs during the war. He was a lance-corporal in the 43rd Wessex, XXX Corps.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
Wouldn’t say how many he killed, but said that he and his mates would deliberately force the German POWs to run and then shoot them in the back to “prevent escape”. He said he stopped after his CO discovered what was going on and gave him a stern warning.
8. Haunting
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
When I was in undergrad I lived in a house off campus, one day the police showed up, said they got a deathbed confession from the person who formerly lived there.
[rtk_adunit_top]
Turns out he had killed his gay lover for cheating on him and then buried him in our basement and built a fake wall to seal off the room. It was all true and they even had the archaeology students come and uncover the body. Amazingly we would tell friends this story and they would volunteer to sleep in the ‘dead man room’ and actually do it.
9. Plot twist
[rtk_adunit_middle]
Maybe cliché idk but my grandmother passed away last Friday. While cleaning out her stuff, we found a notebook that had a short (one page) letter to my mom.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
It was sweet, saying how much she loved her and then out of know where it said “your uncle Bobby is your real dad.” Given that my mom is 53, our minds were sufficiently blown. Like what a plot twist.
10. On his mind
[rtk_adunit_top]
Someone I worked with admitted to being the one who ate too much of the communal food weeks prior. It was odd to me that that’s what was on his mind at the time.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
I hope he didn’t have too much guilt, but he kept going on about it. We told him it was no problem, but I don’t think he even knew we were talking to him by then.
11. How horrible
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
My grandfather admitted to me that he murder my grandmother by pushing her into a dangerous river in Europe because he wanted to be with his girlfriend. Then he told me I was allowed to decide his fate. I didn’t pull the plug and walked out of the hospital.
[rtk_adunit_top]
He died 6 days later in pain from liver disease from drinking. I wasn’t going to have his blood on my hands. His girlfriend had no rights because he never changed his will nor my grandmother’s will. I got everything, gave it out to his children and grandchildren. Didn’t keep a single dime. I did keep my grandmother’s family ring.
12. A harrowing story
[rtk_adunit_middle]
My grandpa wasn’t necessarily on his death bed but he died a week later. We were all sitting at the dinner table and he suddenly starts to tell us about when he was a teenager him and his friend were stealing gas from cars by syphoning them with a plastic tube and sucking it through into a can.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
Well apparently his friend had somehow been absolutely drenched head to toe in the gas and while my grandfather didn’t, his friend decided to light up a cigarette to celebrate filling the gas can and went up in flames. My grandfather looked for help or anything but it was too late. He ran off not wanting to get arrested for anything. Moved to Chicago, started a family, said nothing about the entire thing for 89 years.
13. A word of advice
[rtk_adunit_top]
My grandfather. He raised me and we were extremely close. My mother was the oldest and had me as a teenager so I called him “Daddy” just like my aunts and uncles.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
I was devastated when he was dying and was with him at the very end. Right before he died he suddenly sat up and motioned me closer. When I got close he said, “Never ride a goat. They stink.”
14. Terrifying
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
I hope someone will read this, because I find it pretty terrifying… My grandma’s sister and her husband were really, really rich, but the husband got a lot of money from dishonest business stuff (IDK what it actually was, I just know that he betrayed a lot of people). Money was always his number one priority.
[rtk_adunit_top]
With his last breath, he panicked and screamed: “NO SATAN, TAKE ALL MY MONEY BUT LEAVE ME ALONE!” Then he died…
15. A big secret
[rtk_adunit_middle]
My Dad confessed that he had actually been a CIA employee as a young man right out of the military and helped train Cubans for the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
Over the years I’ve corroborated enough about his locations and movements to believe that it’s 100% true.
16. Witness to a crime
[rtk_adunit_top]
My uncle’s best friend was in hospice on the verge of dying. I stopped by with my uncle to see him and he told me he was in Dallas and watched Kennedy get shot.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
He saw no less than 3 men with guns shooting at Kennedy. He said “no less” because he couldn’t confirm whether there were more than 3 because the area was large and he was unable to scan the entire area, plus he was running and trying to avoid gunfire. But he could confirm 3 men.
17. Hard-hitting
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
My grandfather told me about a bar fight he got into. He worked construction and was a nasty drunk but he had some rules apparently. He didn’t like bullies. He told me about walking into a bar and the biggest guy in the place was harassing folks and looking for trouble so my grandfather said he would go outside and fight him.
[rtk_adunit_top]
At this point I was imagining he was about to tell me how he beat him up but he tells me he punched the guy once in the face and the guy crumpled and died right there outside the bar.
18. Nothing there
[rtk_adunit_middle]
My granddad told me to look in his closet for a surprise he left me. I went home and looked through his closet and found nothing that stood out. Just clothes, shoes, that kind of stuff.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
I have no idea what surprise he left me to this day, or if he was just so out of it at this point he felt he had left me something.
19. Heartbreaking
[rtk_adunit_top]
There was one guy I was sitting with. He had no family/friends there and I volunteered to sit with him. we were talking and he started crying, saying how he wished he had more time and how he had so much he wanted to do in life and regretted not being able to do it and it being too late, like have the love of a good woman, have children, be able to have settled down with someone, be able to have loved.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
He listed other things like parachuting and hot air ballooning and learning how to fly small planes and go on a cruise ship. He said he just put his whole life to his work and career working in construction his whole life and just never really lived or do things he wanted to do, he was forced into his father’s construction company from childhood and it’s all he knew.
20. Secret heritage
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
My maternal grandmother confessed she was born Jewish, to a Jewish mother. To me alone. My aunt, who was extremely close to her, didn’t believe me. Luckily she had time to ask and verify. A few months after she passed, I was talking to a rabbi for work and mentioned it.
[rtk_adunit_top]
He got all the (very little) info I had and came back a month or two later with some deets. Verified who/what/when, told me I was welcome in the faith, and invited me to Sukkot at the Hillel. I’m still a secular humanist. Now I mostly whip it out after someone feels comfortable sharing an anti-Semitic remark to watch them squirm.
21. A tragic story
[rtk_adunit_middle]
This is a true story but very hard to believe. An older poor Irish couple I once knew (they would be at least in their 90s if still alive) had a baby at a rural hospital. The baby was born with some sort of horrible genetic deformity and died immediately. The doctor told them “sorry, but you should never have another baby because they’ll have the same thing.”
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
So they went through life childless. Many years later when they were in about their 50s or 60s and living in California, they got a call out of the blue. It was their son. Apparently, on her deathbed an elderly nun confessed that she had been part of a tragic coverup. She had been the nurse when their healthy baby had been born on the same night as a wealthy couple had had a deformed baby born who died. The husband of the wealthy couple had bribed the doctor to switch the babies. This couple immediately liquidated everything end moved back to Ireland where they got to meet not only their son but their grandchildren.
22. Not fussed
[rtk_adunit_top]
My maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother both passed fairly peacefully and after extended illness. Both were more concerned with us than themselves. My grandmother in particular insisted she wasn’t scared and fussed about us being worried over her (which was very much in her nature).
[rtk_adunit_middle]
My grandfather, true to HIS witty nature, said “If I knew dying was going to be so easy, I would have done it a long time ago”.
23. How sweet
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
Not really a deathbed confession, but these were the last words my grandfather spoke to me. We were talking over the phone, I had moved across the country and he was in the hospital.
[rtk_adunit_top]
I think he knew his time was coming soon. The last thing he said to me was “I’ll always love you.” Years later I still tear up over it.
24. Long lost father
[rtk_adunit_middle]
My mom died when I was 17 of cancer. This confession wasn’t on her death bed, but more of a “dying confession”. One day about 6 months before she died, she called me and then proceeded to tell me that my father wasn’t my real father, and she felt she needed to tell me before she died because my grandmother would after she passed away if she didn’t.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
She then also told me she was pretty sure my birth father had died “years ago”. To this day five years later I’m still so unsure about how I feel about that conversation…
25. Parting words
[rtk_adunit_top]
My father passed away at 55. He was in the hospital for blood clotting issues. I went to the hospital to see him. My ex-wife and kids came up to visit with me and they left early, because my kids were young and the hospital isn’t a fun place to take care of 3 children under the age of 6. They went to a mall that was close by. About 2 hours passed and my ex texted me and said our car won’t start and they were stranded in the mall parking lot.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
I explained the situation to my dad and he said “go take care of your family”. He said it so casually, but it was the last thing he ever said to me. He passed away the next day. The thing that struck me about my father’s words, was that I had been trying to be there for him and my wife and kids through the previous 5 years as he had been in and out of the hospital for different health problems. It was almost like he knew he was going to go, and he released me from having to take care of him. I’d take care of him another 20 years just to have 1 more day with him. He had felt so bad about being a burden but I never felt he was.
26. A firm decision
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
My grandfather was 95 and still sharp, in pretty good health and had been in a nursing home for several years. He was in the hospital for a mild case of pneumonia, and the doctor had just commented about what a good sounding heart he had and was going to send him for one last chest X-ray.
[rtk_adunit_top]
On the way there, he told the young girl pushing him in the bed, that he wasn’t going back to the nursing home, he said all his friends were dead and his wife was also and that he was going to die. The girl said something to the effect of “you’ll be ok”, and he said “No, I’m going to die now”, and he did, right there in the hallway. Just willed himself to die at that moment, I guess.
27. A final goodbye
[rtk_adunit_middle]
I don’t know if he was technically on his deathbed or not but he was dying In the hospital and I called to say goodbye. Grandpa said he loved me and he was proud of me.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
That’s the last thing he ever said to me. So at least I have that going for me… Which is nice.
28. Never found it
[rtk_adunit_top]
My grandma told my dad and one of my uncles that there was a sizable amount of cash hidden in the built-in bookcase in the parlor.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
I was about 10, so they’d take the panels out and I’d go through the crawl space in the back. We never found it, and almost 10 years later, the house has been sold. I really hope she was messing around.
29. The meaning of life
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
My sister died of cancer at the age of 41. For the longest time, she never came to terms with her prognosis, and would avoid the conversation as much as possible. I went to visit her in a nursing home one morning and asked her how she was doing. She was extremely tired and told me that she’s been having all sorts of crazy dreams about planets, aliens, the universe, and life. “I learned the meaning of life.” She told me.
[rtk_adunit_top]
When I asked her what it is, she tried to collect her thoughts for a few moments before giving up and telling me, “It’s hard to explain. I’m tired. I just hope I die soon.” I tucked her into bed, kissed her, and let her fall asleep. She never opened her eyes, and died a week later.
30. Living in denial
[rtk_adunit_middle]
My dad was an egomaniac. He never admitted that he was wrong despite a huge amount of valid evidence to prove him wrong. He was also religious to an unhealthy degree, claiming that others that do not agree with him will go straight down to hell. Additionally, he claimed that he was healthy on all fronts, doing everything right in life, and that his death would be caused by others. He also believed mental health was a hoax, and people only do it to avoid hard work. The only thing he actually believes exists is climate change.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
I was his favorite child. I was kinda oblivious to the whole situation until maybe a year after his death. He started weakening due a medical condition (I don’t remember specifics) and was rushed to the ER. Turns out he had stage 4 cancer. This was the result of unhealthy drinking, too much soda, unhealthy junk food, and consistent smoking (he smoked at least 2 boxes of cigars a day). On his deathbed, he told me something along the lines of, “the only reason I was like this was because I was afraid to accept change.” And that the concept of LGBTQ+, atheism, technology, mental health awareness, and the like were too new to him, and it overwhelmed him. Basically, he lived in denial for most of his life. Reflecting on his life now, I try my best to not be like him.
31. Took it to the grave
[rtk_adunit_top]
Last August my Opa opted for assisted dying. Me and my immediate family spent the night prior and the morning before with him. He was absolutely thrilled and a lot of old humor game back that I thought was gone with his age (turns out being old sucks and he was depressed).
[rtk_adunit_middle]
Anyways, in his youth after he came to Canada he got involved very briefly doing work for the Mafia. So much so that he was asked to manage one of their warehouses. He declined and got away from their business. That morning my Mom asked him what the heck he actually did for them as he always stonewalled the question. He just winked to us all, and said he would never tell…. not quite a confession, but hilarious he wouldn’t say even only minutes from the end.
32. Touching words
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
So, not a confession with juicy family secrets, but: my step dad, my father’s partner, started to get sick in 2015. It started as severe anorexia that landed him in the hospital due to organ failure and then later seemed to morph into lung cancer (he never smoked) and some form of early on set dementia and we don’t know what else. There were several occasions where he almost died before he eventually passed in 2019.
[rtk_adunit_top]
One of those “almost” times back in 2017 I visited him in the hospital. I wasn’t doing too hot myself, I had had a relapse of my own anorexia, and I was about to get sent to rehab down in Florida. I sat on the edge of his bed and talked with him, and I told him that I was sorry, I had always felt like such a disappointment. He had been mumbling incoherently up until I said that, and then he responded with complete lucidity, “You were never a disappointment.” Then seemed to slip back into the dementia. His body eventually held on for 2 more years and I was on the opposite end of the country when he died of pneumonia. But I still think about what he said to me that night. And I’ve been in recovery since that hospitalization in Florida.
33. Poor man
[rtk_adunit_middle]
Not a deathbed confession but more a deathbed nightmare and plea. Took care of a patient on hospice who was an atheist as was his wife. The day he was dying he was screaming in terror saying little black demons and black cats were at his bedside ripping at his flesh torturing him ready to take him to hell.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
He begged for a priest and to be baptized. His wife refused. He died with an absolute look of horror on his face and screaming right before death. Scared me to death. I still think of this patient and pray for him all the time.
34. Disturbing
[rtk_adunit_top]
I am the only one who remembers this interaction but I remember seeing my great-grandmother in hospice when I was very young. For context, my grandma hated her mother and she was very protective of me. My great-grandma had some severe dementia or Alzheimer’s I’m guessing because she kept yelling and asking who I was, upsetting everyone there and kind of scaring me.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
Then she asked me for my stuffed animal dog and I started to cry because she insisted I give it to her and I didn’t want to. My grandma stepped in and said firmly for me to not give it to her. But then great-grandma asked again and my mom quickly took me out of the room. I remember hearing screaming and then all of us leaving in a rush and my grandma looking very rattled after that. I wish I could ask her what exactly happened but she passed away unexpectedly about 11 years ago. I guess great-grandma Utana’s last words were really screams and judging by the way my dad, aunts, uncles and grandparents talked about her, it was good riddance.
35. Back to life
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
Not really a confession, but the last time I remember seeing my grandmother on my father’s side she seemed like she had passed away and everyone thought so, until my grandfather said “That’s it I think she’s gone.” Then we saw her kick at him slightly and we got her to bed and she came back.
[rtk_adunit_top]
Unfortunately, later that night she had passed. Last words my grandmother on my mother’s side she had told me was that even though I’m the middle child they never stopped caring and loving for me and she hoped that I knew how much she loved me.
36. A shock
[rtk_adunit_middle]
My father passed away April 28, 2021. My mom passed away a few months before on December 18, 2020. When he was in the hospital the day BEFORE he died, he told my oldest sister that she wasn’t his daughter. Out of the blue he said this. It’s 8 of us and I’m the middle sibling. He admitted to me and my sister that’s under me that I was his favorite. We always thought it was my baby sister because she got away with murder and NOBODY disciplined her.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
Anyways he said clear as day “you aren’t my daughter.” I bust out laughing. When he passed that Sunday the oldest daughter was in the room. I had gone home to see about my husband and kids. I came up to the hospital and she crying and saying he was calling for our mother and then my name.
37. A big confession
[rtk_adunit_top]
I spent time with quite a few people in nursing homes, the only one that sticks out beyond the sea of “I wish I did more___” was: confessing to hitting and killing a bicyclist.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
It happened when she was much younger. She was at fault. They didn’t give her much more than a slap on the wrist apparently.
38. Holding on
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
After going through a lot of comments, I feel that there is something which can be termed as willingness to live. In many cases, once the person let goes of himself death comes very fast. My dad had a brain haemorrhage and he survived first time. Post-that he was fine and working as usual. Life moved on. Two years passed. College was over and I got a job in a different city. I had an education loan but was not paying the EMIs.
[rtk_adunit_top]
One fine day I informed over the call that I had started paying EMIs. He was very happy and had a good chat with my mom and brother in my native home. Next day he got the same attack and passed away. Sometimes I feel that I should not have made him relaxed. He was holding on for me.
39. A secret confession
[rtk_adunit_middle]
My boyfriend’s grandpa had terminal cancer for two years. It started in his lungs but he eventually developed a tumor in his brain, and the cancer continued to spread throughout his body from there. The brain tumor caused him to start having seizures in his legs, so he was in the hospital. The seizures were painful and kept him from being able to sleep. We were in the hospital with him, and my boyfriend took his grandma to get something to eat. I stayed in the room with his grandpa.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
His grandpa was extremely out of it due to lack of sleep, medicine, and just generally having a literal brain tumor. He didn’t realize I was in the room and just started saying “make it stop, I want to die” over and over. It broke my heart because his daughter was forcing him to go through more and more chemo to try and extend his life as long as possible, ignoring his wishes to just let him pass. I haven’t told my boyfriend or any of his family about what I heard that day, I want them to keep believing that his grandfather was a strong and happy man until the day he died (a couple of months after that day in the hospital).
40. Okay grandma
[rtk_adunit_top]
Grandma said she killed a guy who tried to mug her and dumped his body in the sewage. She said she hit his head with a piece of wood and, when he was down, she pushed him in the sewer’s hole.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
But my grandma also told me she saw an Ovni parked on her roof and then 2 little green men invited her to go in, she did not go with them because her daughters would miss her, so… I don’t know.
41. A secret past
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
When my granddad was on his deathbed there was a guy next to him. For the whole time my family and I were there this man just cried out to God for forgiveness, alone in his bed.
[rtk_adunit_top]
This was the Royal Chelsea hospital for military veterans in London. The man was at the age when he would have served in WW2. Don’t know what he did, though.
42. A change of heart
[rtk_adunit_middle]
I knew my granny was a complicated woman, but she had a sudden fall last year, broke her hip and very suddenly lost her mental faculties. Prior to all this happening, my granny professed to absolutely adore us. As soon as she was back from hospital, two people the family had never heard of were at her side constantly. We couldn’t really get access to her without them supervising, and we didn’t really know whether she welcomed their presence or not: she’d clearly invited them into her life in the past.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
We went through a really upsetting few months with these two people absolutely piling on the pressure for her to rewrite her will, and harassing the family to get her in front of a solicitor before she declined further. As time went on, we lost all sense of what she really wanted. It became really clear to us that this pair genuinely believed that her family were the enemy, or were at least encouraging her to believe that. From reading some of her correspondence with them after she passed, it appears that was struggling mentally for a lot longer than we realised: she’d been accusing us of abandoning her and stealing from her several weeks and months before she fell. Ironically, after her death it transpired that she’d actually stolen quite a bit from other people: she’d never actioned her husband’s will and had just claimed all his assets in her own name. We’ll never really know if she was struggling to cope, getting confused or just really two-faced I guess.
43. Her poor family
[rtk_adunit_top]
My mother-in-law worked at a nursing home so she had seen many things, but one stuck with her. A patient knew he was near the end of his life so he called out for someone – anyone – to listen. She listened. The patient said that when they were young, their father had been out drinking with some friends and on the way home he had hit a little girl.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
Gave very specific details about where and when it happened. The girl was maybe 3 years old. His father and friends hid her body under the porch steps and never spoke of it again. That person had lived with the guilt of keeping it a secret and felt horrible that the little girl’s family would never know what had happened. They had to let someone else know.
44. Nothing crazy
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
I was the last person a few dozen people that died saw. I worked with a lot of elderly in medical care scenarios, not a serial killer– boring, I know. Most didn’t know that was their last night. I certainly didn’t the overwhelming quantity of the time.
[rtk_adunit_top]
Sure, you can speculate on “soon”. But, you cross your fingers that it happens on the shift after you go home. It was the better part of a decade, the last words were mostly just normal words. “Goodnight.” “See you tomorrow.” “Can you fill my water jug?” “Is Bill still awake?” “Later, man.” Nothing interesting to report, sorry about that.
45. Secret surgery
[rtk_adunit_middle]
I don’t know if this counts as she never actually admitted it verbally, but one of my residents at the last care home I worked at had silicone butt implants nobody (still living anyways) knew about. It wasn’t until she broke her hip at the care facility and they were discovered when she went in for surgery. Apparently she got them done sometime in the early 80s, unbeknownst to her husband or children, and kept them a secret for the next 40 years.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
It’s unclear if even she knew she had them, as by that point she had moderate Alzheimer’s and was in her 90s. She struggled remembering the time of day, day of the week, and even distinguishing between night and day. Anyways removing the implants led to some complications to her hip surgery, and she never properly healed. She was wheelchair-bound (then immobile in bed) for 3 months after that before she passed away.
46. A lost aunt
[rtk_adunit_top]
When my grandfather was in the hospital, we were all saying our goodbyes and having a last word with him. He said, “Now that everyone that we know of is here.” Which threw us off but he then explained about how when he was 16 he hooked up with a 19-year-old and he might have had a kid with her.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
He wasn’t sure but at one point later on my dad recalled answering a phone to a woman who said she was my grandfather’s daughter. So my family has a relative, we have never met and don’t know who she is. I would like to meet my unknown aunt but that was all he said about her before he ended up passing away.
47. Confessed to murder
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
My great-uncle lived for 102 years. A man was murdered back in 1947 – he was like a Mafia person and he basically got away with a lot of stuff: hurting people, stealing stuff, killing people, so my great-uncle confessed that he killed the guy because he was sick and tired of him getting away with it.
[rtk_adunit_top]
Him and my great-uncle got in a fight, and my great-uncle shot him. I was there with my three cousins – his grandchildren – the day he died.
48. Reunited in death
[rtk_adunit_middle]
My grandma suffered from dementia for many years before she passed. It got so bad she didn’t remember who her family were, and would barricade herself in her home because she was scared of everyone. The only memories she had left at the end was that her sister used to be able to play the piano beautifully and her husband – her childhood sweetheart – was gone but she didn’t know where (he’d died some time earlier).
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
She spent her days waiting for him to come home from wherever he was. “My John will be home soon” she would say, or someone would walk past the window and she’d double take and say “thought that was my John”. It was heartbreaking watching her deteriorate until she was on her deathbed, unaware of anything or anyone. I went to say my goodbyes to her in the hospital and she held my hand and told me how much she loved me but how she was ready to go be with John now.
49. Amy
[rtk_adunit_top]
I don’t know if this counts as a confession but it felt like one. My grandparents have three daughters. Everyone always said that my mom was my grandfather’s secret favorite. He never agreed. I heard he was on his death bed on April 6th. Went to see him on April 8th. He was scary-looking and the doctor kept saying he didn’t understand why he wasn’t dead yet.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
April 9th everyone but my mom had the chance to come and say goodbye. She doesn’t drive and my dad works 10 hours away. My grampa kept saying her name (well, saying.. he couldn’t eat or drink so it was more like a whisper). My mom came by on the 10th. He looked at her.. smiled.. whispered “My Amy.” He closed his eyes and never opened them again.
50. No more owls
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
My great grandmother lived a very long and interesting life. Over the course of her nearly 100-year life, she had collected owls. Literally thousands of owl figurines. She had clocks, wall-hangings, potholders, lamps, stained glass art, salt shakers, and more little figurines than you could imagine, all depicting owls. We all wondered the importance of the owls. She never talked about them, we just all knew she loved owls.
Well, when she was nearing death, at the age of 98 or 99, and the docs said she had days, my grandparents went and talked to her and they asked her if she had anything she wanted to share or ask before she goes. She thought for a moment, then said, “I never understood the owls.” It turns out, she didn’t really care about owls. Near as we could piece together sometime in the 40s or 50s perhaps, she bought either a trivet or a set of salt/pepper shakers that were owls. Then someone got her the other. Those were the oldest owls anyone could remember. But from there, someone got her an owl to match, probably a potholder or placemat. And all of a sudden her kitchen was owl themed. From there, it snowballed. The owls flowed like wine, baffling her for 60 years, eventually taking over as the bulk of her personal belongings. The moral is: if you’re not actually into something, mention it early.
[rtk_adunit_end]