Hospice/hospital workers of Reddit: what is the strangest or most unexplainable thing you have seen a person experience when they are close to death?
Hospice/hospital workers of Reddit: what is the strangest or most unexplainable thing you have seen a person experience when they are close to death?
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As someone who has worked with people who are end of life, I’ve seen it all. The two that comes to mind are someone opening their eyes wide, look behind me and said “mum”. The other one was someone screaming at a corner of the room terrified. He passed away not long after
We had a guy just die. No warning signs outside of mild chest pain.
I did hospital security for like two years. A healthy middle aged man came into our internal medicine dept for a standard checkup with his PCP. He told the technician that he was having some mild chest pains over the last few weeks. An EKG was ordered and he switched into a hospital gown. Was hooked up closed his eyes and just died.
The medical staff on the unit called for a medical emergency. We responded alongside the code team and he wasn’t able to be resuscitated. We were told it wasn’t a heart attack.
As a hospice volunteer, we have a duty of confidentiality and a commitment to keep those sacred last moments of life private. However, we can certainly talk about things more generally.
Sometimes people get “visits” from loved ones or groups of people. I have had people tell me that someone is coming to get them soon or that a taxi is waiting for them and shortly after they die. I have seen people who are bed ridden for weeks suddenly try to get out of bed. When this happens, I’m usually not surprised if they die soon after. They know they are leaving. I hope this is comforting to people ❤️
I saw a bright white light “pushing” the wheelchair of my favorite client (hospice work). She passed away about 6 hours later.
A woman told me her brother came to visit. He gave her investment advice. She made changes to her portfolio and did quite well. He came again to advise her on her will. I met her son after she passed. He told me her brother had been dead for15 years.
I see a lot of people who are close to death reaching up in the air. Like they are trying to grab something.
I worked as a CNA at a nursing home while I was in college. Strangest thing I experienced was a healthy elderly client asking what time her daughter was scheduled to visit. I told her 430 and she asked me to call her daughter because she was going “home at 353”. It was strange because the time was so specific and as I said she was healthy – no reason to suspect she would die. I did as I was asked and her daughter showed up. The woman had a heart attack with her daughter in the room. He official time of death was 3:55. As everyone knows it takes a couple minutes for the doctor to pronounce a patient dead.
Sick children can be the most disturbing and yet peaceful to lose.
Ive also seen where a child’s imaginary friend told the child to tell the parents something no child would say the way it was said. (Mommy imaginary says to tell you it’s not allergies it’s growing in my head and I’m not going to be okay but you and daddy will be. ) Kid was apparently at home and considered healthy but with a sinus headache when the child did this. Freaked out mom enough she brought her to urgent care. … neuroblastoma found.
Not in any of those fields; but before my grandmother passed she’d constantly see someone standing in the hallway calling her name. She would assume it was me and call me (I was staying at my grandparents to take care of them in their final moments and my mom who is disabled). I’d always come and had to prove no one was there and I hadn’t come out.
As for my grandfather he would keep seeing cats (which he hated cats). It actually would happen so frequently right before something serious happened for hospitalisation I started using it as a sign to check his vitals. It was usually his oxygen dropping into the low 80s percentile in his blood from COPD (he used to work in uranium mines). I makes sense though oxygen deprivation leading to hallucinations. His final week he had a unusual amount of happiness and energy actually getting up to play counter strike and with his RC Tanks. When I noticed that I knew it was the “Last Wind”. You just kinda get that feeling of “oh no… This isn’t normal; their too happy for no reason”.
One woman was very close to death. She opened her eyes and began having an intense conversation with her brother. He had died five years earlier. She was looking at the corner of her bed and acting like he was sitting there talking back to her. She then lied back down, smiled and died.
At a facility many years ago as a CNA, there was a cat that would sit with people at the end of their lives, so we always knew when it was close for someone.
During a night shift we had a very sick gentleman with extensive stage 4 lung cancer (not for any MET calls or CPR, but for end of life care if he deterioriated further) and was in a really bad way. Earlyish in the night we attended to him after we heard him faintly calling out “help me, help me”. Gave him some Morphine too because he was clearly uncomfortable. We checked him again 1 hour later, still breathing, looking relaxed, resting in bed. The 2nd hourly check I come back and I find his bed is raised to its maximum height, and he has passed looking deathly grey and is no longer breathing.
My colleague is equally surprised at the bed situation because he hadn’t touched it. We both figured perhaps in a delirium the patient had messed around with his bed controller perhaps trying to signal for help or something mistaking it for the nursing call bell. After the doctor finally certifies the death and contacts the family we move the patient out of his room and into our treatment room so we can prep him for the morgue and place him into a body bag. My colleague and I had lowered the bed and put it at a safe height for our backs so we could roll and clean him safely. I sh!t you not the moment we had finished wrapping him and had stepped back the bed starts making a whirring noise and starts rising up again. I can see my colleague’s hands and he can see mine and neither of us have our hands anywhere near the bed controller. We both just shot each other a “WTF?! 😳” look.
Most likely just a problem with the bed’s electrics, but to have it happen, particularly after we had finished and not just during the procedure was a real X-Files moment for me.
This one was kinda nice if that is possible to say about death. I stayed with my mom 24/7 while she was on hospice. A neighbor/good friend brought her 6 lilies. One lily died each day. On the 6th day they both died. Like a countdown for family to emotionally prepare.
Had a patient die in the cardiac ICU and the old guy died with a huge erection (like 10 inches) due to the medications used to try and resuscitate him.
I’m not in the medical field but my Grandpa flew to see his sister after she had a terrible accident in a nursing home & wasn’t expected to recover. My uncle & aunt took him to say his final goodbye & they heard him say he would see her again soon. When they returned home we were all waiting for the call that she had passed. The call that came was that my Grandpa had gotten home from the airport, thanked my aunt & uncle for taking him & had gone to his room to lay down for a nap. He passed in his sleep & was found by his daughter when she biked to his house to chat about his visit. I’ll never forget my Dad, his son, answering the phone and saying he was gone. My Dad hung up the phone & it rang again, this time it was his cousin calling to say my Grandpas sister had passed. As far as we could figure out, they died within a few hours of each other.
Not a hospice/hospital worker, but do have something to add to this: my mum had a massive stroke in front of me. She was still talking for a bit and she turned to me and said “the C. Sisters”… I was very confused and said: yeah, the C sisters, I’m sure they are fine. Luckily enough, I managed to tell her I loved her and she told me she loved me. She passed 5 days later. When I mentioned to my aunt that mum had said “the C sisters” when having the stroke, she was shocked. She told me that the C Sisters were cousins of their mother’s who took care of their mother on her deathbed. When my grandmother died, they were there and took care of the whole situation. I don’t know if she saw them during the stroke, I don’t know what exactly happened, but I like to think that she was at peace and being taken care of.
One of my ex’s grandfather who was in good health woke up one day and asked his son to take him to mass. They went to mass, he did confession and received a blessing, and on the way home he put his head on his son’s shoulder as his son was driving, said his deceased wife’s name and passed away. we all assumed he knew this was his last day. Not a bad way to go.
We had a lady die for about 13 seconds then come back. She grabbed another nurse’s arm, wide eyed and said all she saw was black.
She was freaked out. And so were we.
Not in the medical field, but something my father in law said as he was actively dying has stayed with me all these years.
In one of his very last lucid moments, drifting between life and death, he very clearly asked, “The brain.. the heart… what’s it all for?”
I figure his body knew he was about to die and his mind was racing trying to reconcile that imminent experience with something he’d know in his heart or brain but not finding anything familiar because it was the first time ever that he was dying. And also the last time. It was eerie but very human. I’ll always remember that.
I worked as a clerk on an Otolaryngology unit for a few months when I was in college. For some reason, when people were about to die, many of them, even if they hadn’t been mobile in some time, would get up and walk up the hallway as if they were trying to get away. The first time it happened, a woman who had been nonverbal for days and hadn’t eaten in that time, came walking up to me at the desk in the middle of the night and asked me where would be a good place to get a burger in town. It was very weird.
My grandfather was dying in a nursing home, a lot of patients were roaming the building as we were waiting for him to pass. My grandfather was an asshole, just not a great person. When he was taking his last breath we heard a patient right outside the door say “god damnit get the fuck away from me” and we assumed his soul hopped off her on his way out, as the patient didn’t normally speak that way.
I don’t work at a hospital but was in there with my dad while he was passing….he had a stroke and died 5 days later….on day 3-5 he kept reaching up and trying to grab something or someone (I snapped a few photos) and mumbling “mum, mum” he kept crying as well….the minutes before passing he would stop breathing then gasp so loudly every time he did it I would literally jump
Not medical field and this might just be rumor but my grandma swears that when her husband died, he reached out his hands and was saying all of his dead relatives names like he was greeting them. Like this old man was crying from seeing his mom. My grandma still can’t explain it other than end of life delirium.
I worked as a night shift medtech at an assisted living hospice and dementia care facility I walked into a woman’s room hour’s around 2AM who was on hospice I went to check on her and saw a black figure on her chest hunched over her. I told my supervisor, and we both administered her care for the rest of the night together by the next shift I had she had passed.
Not hospice but my Uncle’s last moments, he was sat in his bed with the afternoon sun shining in and his daughter was having a chat to him as well as his sister on the bay window seat and his cat was in his lap and he sighed deeply and said “ Well as lovely as all this is, I’m afraid I must go.” And he rest his head back on the pillow and was gone.
I work in assisted living and had spent days explaining to a family that their mom’s passing was imminent. They finally come to see her. She is sitting in the dining room going to town on some chicken parm. They look at me like I have 5 heads. She passed away peacefully surrounded by family the next day
My grandfather was in the hospital. Before he died he asked for his comb and combed his hair. He always tried to look sharp in public.
My great-grandfather who been mostly comatose for days suddenly sat up in bed with a huge smile on his face and opened up his arms in greeting before falling back stone dead. Whatever he saw in his last moments must have been incredible.
Not in the medical field, but my mom was in palliative care with cancer. She had a lot of anxiety surrounding dying and rarely addressed it head on, but one day in late April as I sat beside her bed in the hospital, she told me she thought that she was going to die that day. I was at a loss for words when she suddenly asked me the date, and I told her April 28th. She remarked how it was her estranged daughter’s/my estranged older sister’s birthday, and that it wouldn’t be very nice for my sister to have to share her birthday with her (my mom’s) death day. She didn’t mention anything more of it, or about dying on any specific day.
She passed exactly one month later on May 28th. And in typing this I realize that today is also my sister’s birthday… strange.
My mom had been seeing her (dead) brother a couple weeks before she passed. She would look out the window and say she could sometimes see him leaning on the fence across the street.
Then, she would hear people talking. It was people who had passed before her. Her brother, her parents, my dad, etc. I asked what they were saying and she said it just sounded like they were all having a conversation in the other room. She couldn’t hear any specifics.
Last, she reverted back to speaking Spanish.
She didn’t teach any of us Spanish, so we have no idea what she was saying. She would stare off and just start whispering things in Spanish.
My mom was leaving from visiting my grandma in the nursing home. She told my grandma that she would be back on Thursday. My grandma said she wouldn’t be there on Thursday. Late that Wednesday night, they called my mom to tell her my grandma had died.
I worked hospice for awhile. One of my patients was completely removed mentally and had been non verbal for about 4 months. The night he passed he looked at his wife and began to sing their wedding song. I believe it to be terminal lucidity. He looked at her while singing and with tears in his eyes he said that he always loved her. He then closed his eyes and passed away as his wife finished the song.
It changed my life.
I think what surprises me if how peaceful it can be. I’ve had deaths where I didn’t even realize til moments after because they went so quietly and peacefully.
They see people that we dont. It happened quite a bit when people were dying. The one that stands out the most was a lady who kept pushing her call light and saying, “There was a man just in here. But he left…” and looked worried. A few of these in the evening and then just once more near the end of my shift. I walk in and before she speaks, i squat beside her bed and hold her hand. I warmly reassure her there’s no one else in her room or the hallway. She is safe.
Her face lit up with a smile, and she said “oh! Hes right behind you!”
I kept my shit together and gtf off my unit asap. Next shift had a different patient… cause that one died in the night.
I worked as a nurse aid for a while in a nursing home.
This was on a memory ward. The person looked directly at me said, “You’re a good person. You’re going to have a good life – I saw it.”
I was going through a pretty bleak period and that didn’t seem very likely to me. I have no idea what they thought they saw, but it freaked me out pretty good.
I was about 6 or 7 when my grandma died. She had just come back from a cruise to Aruba, got sick, and had to be put into the hospital.
My dad took me to see her most nights. But on this particular night I was really sick with a stomach bug. High fever, vomiting, etc.
My parents were divorced, so he called my mom to come over and sit with me while he went to the hospital. I was so sick that even the smell of my mom’s shampoo made me vomit. My mom put me to bed early, and went downstairs.
Some time later, I woke up to see my grandma at the foot of my bed, telling me that everything was ok, and not to be sad. I didn’t think too much of it at the time.
The next morning, I wake up feeling a little better. My dad tells me that my grandma died the night before.
Saw a lot of examples of patients who seemed to pick their time of death.
For example, one family insisted on dad/Gpa not dying alone. A dozen family members hanging around him in his room 24/7 for days. They turned around and were talking to each other in the doorway of his room and he died while their backs were turned.
That’s what he wanted.
I worked night shift in an inpatient unit. A lady died the night before, she had been on the unit for a while, family had photos of her dressed up placed around the room. She was a singer, and some of the photos were of her wearing a black dress and a big black hat. The new patient that was admitted to that room during the day wasn’t able to sleep at night during my shift. I asked her if anything was wrong, she said a lady in a long black dress and big black hat kept singing and it was keeping her awake. That was 20 years ago and it still gives me chills.
Hospice Nurse for a few years. Multiple times i’ve had patients tell me they hear bells before they pass, i’m talking 4-5 times in 2 years.
The final one seemed like he could probably stick around for a while, he told me he heard the wedding bells, that they sounded beautiful and he was excited. He passed that night.
I’ve had patients get uncharacteristically clear headed hours before they die and thank me for being kind; it was not a “rally”, they didn’t get a bunch of energy or seem any healthier, just unexpected displays of gratitude right before passing.
I’m going to preface these last two with, I don’t believe in the paranormal. I just genuinely cant explain this or maybe I don’t want to think about it enough to find a reason.
I had a patient pass while I was in the room, she wasn’t my favorite patient, honestly she was pretty hostile and me and her never really developed a rapport. I pulled her lines, shut her eyes, put her body in a more comfortable position. I usually say something small when I’m done, hers was maybe “I hope you were comfortable, I hope the transition is easy”. I shit you the fuck not the light above her head turned off, maybe 5s or so. Then the light in the middle of the room turned off, similar amount of time, but the light above her head had turned back on. Then both of those lights were on, but the light above the door turned off. I was PALE, I just cant really explain what that would even be.
Had another lady jerk up in bed when my back was turned, had a CNA in the room with me. She looked at us and started speaking in a deep voice, like a voice I wouldn’t expect a granny to even be able to speak in. Said some weird bullshit like “you think you can just do whatever you want” and started laughing. I whipped around and the CNA about had a panic attack. The old lady just started talking normally again, I asked if that was her and she just gave a light laugh. She was fine the rest of the night, super sweet. Passed near the morning.
Theres probably an explanation for the last two, but its still just creepy as hell man.
A man with dementia was close to death. He had been unresponsive for days. His adult daughter stayed beside him playing his favorite south Korean soap opera. A few hours before he died, he opened his eyes and looked right at her with knowing and recognition. He smiled and said her mother’s name and lifted his hand to point past his daughter. His wife had already died, he closed his eyes and died later that afternoon.
Obligatory “not a hospice/hospital worker”, but I did 30 years as a first responder. I have NO idea how many folks died with me, as I tried to offer peace comfort. For real… I have no idea. Young men clutching my hand after shootings.. the countless people on their last breaths after auto accidents. I can’t even begin to account for them all. But here’s the deal: you get pretty emotionally immune to watching folks die. You just do. But to THIS day, I can recall the names and faces of every child that died in my arms.. it’s a got damn nightmare. And please note… I’m not religious. I’m not a “warm guy”. I’m in my mid 50’s and still don’t have children of my own. But holy shit, the innocent kids still haunt me.
My last month of work., we got an innocuous call of a child that fell down in a parking lot. It was 200 yards away from our station. A car was flying around too fast in the parking lot, and clipped her. I arrived on foot. And a sweet 10 year old girl was crying, as she lie in the street. I got down and held her. Held her hand.. she was in tears and excruciating pain. She looked in my eyes and told me, “I’m scared because I’m dying..”. I held her hand tight, and promised her she’d be alright. She was so scared. Within 10 or so mins, we finally got an ambulance to rush her to ER. She died later that evening.
And all the fucking shootings, stabbing, overdoses, and homicides.. and they mean almost nothing to me. But all these years later, and I still see that little girl’s face in my dreams. She was in so much pain. She was so scared. So scared.
And now… I’m checkin back out. This life was never supposed to be easy. I get it. I do. But if there’s a God, he’s got a lot of apologizing to do.
Not strange per se, but memorable; I was working a night shift once and went to clean up my patient. I had an old flash light that I put on the table that cast a golden glow over me as I gently woke my patient. He looked up at me in awe and said “Are you an angel?”
When I was still in nursing school working in the emergency department (we have paid positions we can get in our last 2 years here) we had a patient pass away in one of the beds, nothing really out of the ordinary there, it was expected. When we got a new patient later that shift into the spot they were staring at the ceiling above the bed talking to someone one with the same name as the person that had just passed away there. This second person was also quite unwell and likely to pass in the next few days. They were both elderly and of very different cultures, and it didn’t seem likely that they new each other or that the second new a lot of people with the first persons name.
I once cared for a woman in a care home, who one day cried to me that she was done with this life, had no more reason to live. When I came back to work 2 days later she was actively palliating and died that night.
I have also many times see patients wait until a last family member comes to see them, or waits until the family leaves the room to pass. Or waits until a loved one tells them it’s okay to go.
It often seems like people have some influence on their timing.
Not me but my Mom, she was working in a nursing home for the elderly at the time. She was making rounds and walked into a lady patient room with her(the patient) shouting “Get out of here!” at the corner of her room. The lady patient asked Mom is she sees him, Mom asks, Who? The lady replies, “The man over there!” pointing to the empty corner. There was no one in the room besides the two of them. Mom asked if the man was wearing a blue suit, to which the patient replied that he was.
Mom said she’d be right back and was going to make some phone calls to the patients daughter who was in another part of the state. After some back and forth, the patients daughter agrees to come visit her mom. My Mom finishes her rounds by the time the daughter comes. The daughter visits until visiting hours are over and books a hotel room for the night. The lady patient passed away that night.
Now there was an incident prior to this when her own sister passed away(the sister was the youngest of the three siblings). Since then, my Mom is convinced the grim reaper wears a blue suit.
I am not. But the hospice nurse who cleaned my mom commented on her soap and how nice it smelled. The next time the hospice nurse came by, my mom gave her a half a dozen package of the soap. I like to think that nurse still thinks nicely of my mom almost a year later
My first wife died at 33. I spent every moment with her for the last 5 days of her life. She was on morphine and pretty out of it. But right before she went her eyes shot open and she looked right in my eyes. I leaned in and whispered it’s ok, I would take care of our two kids, we will be fine. I told her I loved her and would see her on the other side. She nodded ever so slightly and smiled and passed away at that moment.
I work in prehospital emergency care and one day I went to this elderly woman in a nursing home. The reason we were called was because the staff thought she was having seizures. When I walked into her room I was greeted with a lovely woman sat upright in her chair looking very well. Throughout my assessment she was laughing and joking with me, and her observations came back normal. She asked for a cup of tea and sent her daughter out the room to get it and then she turned to me, I was sat beside her, and said “remember I have a DNAR” and I reassured her that I had seen it. She then leaned over to me and tapped me gently on my hand and said “well, whatever you do dear don’t bring me back” and proceeded to die. It was like she had her finger on the off switch and decided to flick it, I’ve never seen a person go so calmly into death.
Last time I saw one patient, he casually mentioned the black cat in the hospital room with us. He assumed we could also see it.
This is a weird one to me. My Fil was home hospice. All the family were around him, about 15 people crammed in the bedroom. My husband was playing the guitar, all his father’s favorite songs. I noticed my youngest, about 8 just staring above fil head. Fil didn’t pass until the next morning, but when I asked my son what he was looking at he said two really tall angels standing on either side of pappy. He said the angels didn’t look at anyone else but him. He said they were waiting for him. When I’ve asked him about it after, he doesn’t remember anything about it.
My mom died of COPD. She was in the ICU, hooked up to a ventilator, in and out of consciousness and on very heavy pain medication. She was strapped to the bed at one point because she kept trying to pull her IVs and tubes out.
I was in the room with my sister and aunt (her sister), and we were talking about my dad. My mom stirred a bit, came to for a moment, and with what little energy she had, lifted her middle finger in the air. It was no secret that they didn’t like each other, but this one little thing made everyone laugh and it’s still something I think back on over a decade later.
She passed away later when we turned off life support.
When my dad’s grandfather was nearing the end, my dad and his mom were at Gramp’s bedside. Gramps was a stubborn old man about pretty much everything. He’d been declining steadily for a few days at this point, and my dad eventually took his hand and said, “You know, it’s okay to let go and die. We’ll be okay.” He and my grandmother both say that Gramps opened his eyes one last time, took a final breath, and passed. My dad swears it’s the only time Gramps ever listened to anything anyone said to him.
Oddly enough, my grandmother (Gramp’s daughter), had a similar passing. She went into hospice on Christmas eve with the nurse saying we could expect maybe 48 hours. She hung on nearly two more weeks. It was heartbreaking for all of us, because she really wasn’t there anymore. One of the hospice workers finally asked if it was possible if she was waiting for someone to say goodbye. My grandmother helped raise my cousin, who is now semi-estranged from the rest of the family. Even if the cousin had shown up to say goodbye, I don’t think my grandfather would have let them in. So my mom went to my grandmother’s bedside and told her that my cousin was not going to come and that she was going to have to let that relationship heal after death rather than before it. My grandmother passed that afternoon. It was like she just needed to know for sure that she wasn’t going to miss that goodbye.
Patient had post-polio syndrome. Bed bound, on oxygen but stable and 100% oriented. I came to visit him and he was so excited to tell me he saw his wife. He told me she was standing in the doorway of his room motioning for him to follow her. But he couldn’t get up. He kind of laughed and said it sounds crazy but was certain she was there! I told his daughter and warned her that sometimes it means the time is close. She brushed it off saying their anniversary was tomorrow, so she’s probably on his mind.
I went to check on him early the next day. He was gone. His wife seemingly came and got him for their anniversary. 🥹
I had a lady who was actively dying. Terminal secretions causing very audible breathing. (The death rattle.) She was alone and her son couldn’t be there. He asked me to stay with her until she passed. Eventually her apnea starts lasting longer and longer. Until it’s been 5-10 minutes since she’s taken a breath. I take out my stethoscope to listen for a heart beat. I’m listening and can’t hear a thing. She looks deceased. Just as I’m about to call TOD she SITS UP and screams NOOOO with a secretion filled inhale. Then collapsed back in the bed and start the cheyne stokes breathing pattern. About 20 minutes after that, she died for real. Scared the shit out of me.
Had another patient who lived alone. She was stable but terminal. As I was leaving her home I told her I’d see her tomorrow. She hollered as I left “No you won’t!” With a chuckle. Gallows humor due to her illness being terminal is how I took it.
I got a message that morning that she passed away in her sleep. Somehow, maybe she knew.
I once had a lady who was leaving that morning to go home on hospice, zero issues all shift. My tech and I had to 2:1 assist another patient we were in that room maybe 20 minutes. Came out and the lady had passed. I had literally just taken her to the bathroom and had a whole convo getting her comfortable in bed right before helping the other patient.
Had another guy, was suppose to discharge but his home health got delayed and he was visibly upset about staying another night. Ended up having a spontaneous lower GI bleed start about two hours later. He went from bad to worse very quick, they were trying to argue the ICU transfer to the point the rapid nurse had to INSIST them he could not stay on our floor. I was told the next evening when I was back that he died in the early morning. I will never forget him telling me he was kind of scared before they took him to the ICU.
Edit: Spelling errors
My grandpa had been sick for years. On his 83 birthday, I remember him saying he didn’t think he’d make it to 84. Sure enough, he died 2 days before his 84th birthday.
Not a medical worker, but just before my grandfather passed, he was throwing and catching an invisible baseball for hours. He dedicated his life to baseball, played as long as he could, and then was an announcer for the rest of his life for a minor league team that he founded. His brain allowed him to play until the very end, even if it was just by himself
When my mother was dying, she looked up at the ceiling and said her sister’s name. Whether she actually saw something or was hallucinating, I don’t know. I imagine it’s a common thing.
Few things always fascinated/amazed me was what we call the ‘rise before the fall’ ( when the dying seems to become more well for a little while before going downhill again & passing) & the death tear ( the one that roles down the face just as they pass – only ever seen it roll from one eye never two). The ‘talking to someone who isn’t there ‘ is often talked about but not so much the other two.
Ironically I’m a funeral director but this story is personal. My grandpa was in palliative care at home from a brain tumor. A few days before he passed, he said “I’m taking her with me” and pointed at his wife (my grandma). She was on home oxygen but there was no illness/decline or any reason for us to believe she was going to die, but she did – exactly one month after him.
Not a Doctor or a Nurse.
One of my Uncles had stage 4 Pancreatic cancer. He was a tough guy and didn’t trust hospitals so he didn’t see a Doctor until it was way too late, despite being in debilitating pain. When he did, the prognosis was grim, he had maybe six weeks left and Pancreatic cancer is a painful way to die. He decided to get MAiD instead. Medical Assistance in Dying, which is legal in Canada.
On the day we were all gathered around his bed, all the paperwork and permissions were sorted out and the syringe of drugs was connected to his IV. He was heavily sedated, but he has to be the one to push the plunger, which he did with the help of his wife. He closed his eyes and his breathing got very shallow and slowed down. After a few minutes we thought he had passed.
We were all standing around him, some saying goodbye, a lot of people were crying. About 10 minutes passed and people started to leave when suddenly, in a strong clear voice he said, ”Russell, wait for me”, he weakly raised his hand then his breath rattled once and he was gone. Nobody knew who Russell was, and it was kind of a mystery we talked about from time to time at family gatherings, trying to guess who he was.
Years later his wife passed and when his kids were going through her things they found a very old photograph of him when he was maybe 5 years old. He was in a sandbox with a small dog, on the back of the picture in faded ink it read ‘Russell, 1944’.
The thought that our pets that have gone before us meet us to help us cross over fills me with comfort. I hope it isn’t just a mind trying to make sense of a crazy time. I hope my Kacey and Finneygan are waiting for me.
Nursing home worker here, and I’ll never forget this.
I worked midnights, and one of my patients was loudly singing the hymn with the line ‘Lord, I’m coming home’, late into the night. The place was mostly quiet except for that
And she did, a couple hours later.
My Dad saw his best friend and reintroduced him to my sister and was holding out his arms and calling for my mom. Both had passed away some years before him. It was comforting to know his people came to help him leave this life.
My grandmother had dementia. She died a few years ago. My Uncle called to notify me
they were expecting her to pass shortly. I called the nursing home to see if they could put the phone to her ear so I could tell her I love her one last time. Although she was pretty much inconpasitated, the nurse still granted my request. I heard the nurse tell her who was calling for her. She said her eyes actually lit up and turned her head in excitement for a brief moment.
I’m scared of dying because I don’t know what is after death, but these stories make me hope and believe more that there is something. I hope when it’s my time I see my family and my pets again. I think when I’m old I’ll be more at peace with it but at the moment, it’s scary! Yet I know it’s nothing to be really scared of. It’s just the unknown.
Not in the medical field but my Nana died of metastatic lung cancer in my house growing up. Towards the end she was calling out dogs of the past to her. Like dogs my Dad had as a kid. She loved animals more than humans…so it was fitting that those were her angels.
Not a worker but the story ive been told by my mom/aunts about my grandpa. He was in a sort of coma/non responsive state to anyone on his deathbed except baby 1yo me, he was sort of playing with me (no sound just wirh his hands, from what i got told i was his eye apple). He died when we left the hospital like he waited for us to leave to pass away.
Not a hospice or hospital worker, but I witnessed my father’s death. We were in the doctors office, chatting as normal. Out of nowhere, he stood up, looked right through me and said “If that’s what you want” and had a *massive heart attack.
What he said never made any sense to me. It was completely irrelevant to our conversation and he was completely coherent before hand. I’m not religious, not spiritual, really nothing but it was a very strange feeling.
Death Doula here. I worked with a lovely old woman who I was helping get an eMOLST (like a DNR for people with disabilities living in certified settings). Everyone was on edge because they didn’t want to have to do CPR on this 80 lb. woman. She used to tell me she wanted to go on a long walk in the country. When we finally got the paperwork in place, her staff told her it was all taken care of and she could go whenever she was ready. She sat right up and said I’m going to take that long walk in the country now. She died the next day.
My grandma, who was very religious, always said she wanted to die on a Sunday, the Lord’s day. She also thought it would be funny to die on March 4th — to “march forth” to glory on March 4th. There’s not that many Sunday, March 4ths in her lifetime, but she did manage to die on one of them!
My grandfather was in hospice care for about a year. Towards the end he wasn’t very lucid but one evening he had a moment of clarity and told my aunt not to be upset or sad that she and my mother would be with him soon. My grandfather was never of sound mind to know that my mother had been diagnosed with ALS and my aunt was 100% fine at the time. 2 months later my mom passed away and another 4 months after that my aunt died of cancer that was never diagnosed. I think of this at least once a day.
My Mom waited for me to return to the hospice, let me read my letter to her, squeezed my hand and then passed away. I felt the change in the air as she did.
My step grandma chose to do hospice at home. She’d been in a coma for about a week, come Friday, she sat up asking for me. She wanted to make sure I’d paid the bills. Before she slipped into the coma she’d asked that I ensure they got paid on the Friday as she didn’t trust her husband to remember.
After I confirmed they’d all been paid, she went back into the coma and passed that night.
Its been 10 years and it’s still such a vivid memory
I have been with many people at end of life. When my father was dying, our family was gathered around for hours. We sent his two grand children to the park to give them a break and within minutes of them leaving, my father looked up, opened his eyes so wide, smiled and took his last breath. I’m not sure who he saw that made him smile but he did not want to die with his grand kids in the room.
Not hospice, but my late wife had been sick for many years and had many surgeries since an auto accident left her disabled.
As I got up one morning, she said her leg hurt, it had been previously amputated below the knee.
I felt it and it was warm, I thought blood clot and told her I was taking her to the ER.
She flat told me no, that she was done with doctors and hospitals. She’d had twenty surgeries and had been in the hospital at least 30 times over the 20 years since the accident.
She passed away the next morning, I had to leave and was talking to her on the phone and she said she was having trouble breathing, my granddaughter was there with her and I told her to dial 911, and raced home.
When I got there the EMT’s just shook their heads.
No autopsy, but they suspected a blood clot.
At least I got to tell her I loved her before she hung up.
When my grandfather came home on hospice (the prostate cancer eventually metastasized into his bone marrow), I was the closest grandchild – both geographically and in terms of my relationship with my gramps – and I helped my grandmother do the heavy lifting for the last several weeks of his life.
I remember the last night he was alive. He was incredibly restless and kept throwing his blankets off – what I now know to be signs of death approaching – and at one point, he looked at me, reached his skeletal hand out, and croaked, “Help me.”
Now, my grandpa had retired from the Navy as a CWO-4 after 34 years in the service. He was a deeply proud and stubborn man. And at this point, his body had deteriorated to the point that he was literally skin and bones. He looked like the Holocaust survivors that were liberated from the camps. He had literally wasted away. Meanwhile, my grandpa had confessed to me many months prior that he hoped he’d die before he had to rely on people to take care of him exactly as I was doing then – changing, bathing, spoon-feeding, etc.
And when he asked – begged – for me to help him, I looked at him in his desperation and suffering and hollowly replied, “I’m sorry. I can’t. I don’t know how.”
My heart still aches 10+ years later when I remember the profound sense of helplessness I felt in that moment.
I’m not a religious person. Hell, I don’t even know if I believe in God. But that night, as I drove back to my apartment to grab supplies before returning to my grandparents’ house, I prayed that it would be over. I wept as I drove and beseeched whatever higher power an aching heart calls out to. I remember saying aloud, “It’s enough. Please. This. Is. ENOUGH. Just let it be over. Please, just let it be over.”
My apartment was only 20 minutes away, but just as I was pulling into the parking lot, my cell phone rang. It was my grandmother calling to tell me that my grandfather had just died.
fuck me I should NOT have opened this thread
absolute massive respect to all of you hospice workers. you are an absolute blessing to society
I am not a hospice nurse but I was close with one. She left hospice after an experience with a terminal cancer patient. The patient had kids and a husband, and they were part of an extreme Christian group.
The group did faith healing and came in to “heal” the patient at home. Lifted her up and down several times and essentially broke all the bones in her body because cancer had weakened them. Hospice nurses were horrified.
Not long after, the patient passed. My friend was called in, but she noticed the patient’s body was just left unattended in a corner and husband seemed irritated. My friend asked him if he was okay, and he said “She was weak. She wouldn’t have died if she really had faith in God.” And he implied his wife was going to hell in front of their little kids.
My friend is Christian. She and the other hospice nurses got together and confronted the leader of the faith healing group and ripped him a new one for teaching his followers such awful beliefs. But she couldn’t get over it.
Edit: sorry this isn’t really a supernatural story, but years later it was clear the nurse still got spooked relaying what she saw from those faith healers. Humans can be terrifying.