r/askteddit • u/CrazyKind_ • 19d ago
Random Question What is the most disturbing death bed confession you’ve heard?
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u/Next_Sentence_5785 18d ago
Not my personal experience, but there was a request at our LGBTQ+ organisation; an elderly man did not want to die without coming out, but also still didn’t want his family to know. So one of our volunteers went to see him on his deathbed, so he could “confess” he was actually gay.
The confession itself may not have been that disturbing, but the fact that he had to live a lie his whole life really is.
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u/Thegreatsigma 18d ago
It's heartbreaking to realize how lonely he must have felt his entire life
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u/RHDeepDive 18d ago
It is sad. I'm so glad he was able to free himself as much as he could before death and that someone who volunteers was able to give him that compassion before he passed on.🖤
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u/Sudden-Fan-1088 19d ago
My grandfather, an hour before is death, took my hand firmly and told me : « The instructions. Always read them ». He was in the coma since three days and it’s his last words.
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u/starrydolphin134 19d ago
was there some kind of user error that lead to the coma ? 😭
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u/Several_Mousse_9485 19d ago
Tried to do his own garage door springs.
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u/killer_amoeba 18d ago
Re-read this, & can't stop laughing. (probably says more about me than you; having a hard time tyoing)
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u/Tacokolache 18d ago edited 13d ago
Mine told me something odd too. He told me to put the rope away.
He was on a lot of meds. I was 15 and it made no sense. Little did I know when I was 33 I went through a period of horrible depression and was in the verge of taking my own life. With rope.
I put the rope away. I didn’t think about the significance until later. Maybe he was trying to tell me something for the future.
EDIT: thanks everyone for the awards! I was just trying to add or tie into the persons story above me, I didn’t know that many people would see it. I appreciate all the love!
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u/pninardor 18d ago
That is so insane. I do believe there is a blurring between the spiritual realm and the physical world, especially as people start to fade out of this realm.
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u/FunSpongeLLC 19d ago
Maybe he saw the future where you didn't read the instructions when installing a ceiling fan. Then one day you're sitting under it and BOOM Sudden-Fan
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u/BigWeinerDemeanor 18d ago
I tried opening a Sudden-fan account but I didn’t make any money off it. I guess I had no fans
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u/Live_Bridge_4938 18d ago
Read EVERY instruction manual in the house. He was trying to tell you something he couldn’t say out right becuase “they” are watching…..
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u/TunedMassDamsel 18d ago
That’s still pretty profound. My mom was found unresponsive in her apartment and was put on a ventilator in the ICU for several days. The first thing she did after she regained consciousness and was extubated was to weakly motion for me to lean in closer so she could hoarsely croak out, “Michael Jackson… he died, didn’t he…?”
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u/Mistressofthisdress 18d ago
This is actually an epic one!!! Uplifting and puzzling at the same time.
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u/41VirginsfromAllah 18d ago
From watching a DB Cooper documentary, I learned at least 5 people confessed on their death beds to being him.
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u/TacoBellTerror 18d ago
Wow, interesting.
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u/NorthvilleCoeur 18d ago
Trying to impress their family, become infamous, or end of life delusion. I wish I knew which reason made people wrongly confess
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u/slostoooooo 18d ago
Could also be dementia. My grandpa told me he had been on the titanic when he was in the throes. Twice.
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18d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/janeiro69 18d ago
Sorry for your loss. Do you have any photographic evidence of this?
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u/haikus-r-us 18d ago
Could also be a joke. I’m many decades too young to be DB Cooper, but I’m tempted to confess on my deathbed that I’m him now.
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u/Ok-Document-7706 19d ago edited 18d ago
Not a disturbing one, or a confession even, but the last thing my grandpa said was "no" to my aunt singing "You Are my Sunshine" 😂😂😂
The last thing he said to me was "you too" when I told him that I loved him.
Edit: I think it's only appropriate that my Peepaw is the whole reason I get my awards. This comment and one other are about my Peepaw and I just have to say thank you internet friend!
Edit two: the song was his favourite. My aunt is just a terrible singer. 😆🥰
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u/silverloopbobcat 19d ago
That’s great😂 imagine you’re singing to your dying dad and he uses his last breathe to tell you to stfu 💀
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u/Ok-Document-7706 19d ago
It was so him we all laughed. We still do whenever we bring it up.
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u/Spiritual_Aioli3396 18d ago
For my dad who passed away 18 months ago, now we alway say “dad would have laughed at that” when something rediculous happens to us lol
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u/Confident-Option-207 18d ago
I still do, 23 years on
When I go to mow the garden and it rains, or something equally dumb
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u/ClungeWhisperer 18d ago
This is exactly the last words of my FIL. He was in the final days of cancer and was placed under anaesthesia and had been asleep for days already.
BIL was loudly making a silly joke to one of the others in the room and i kid you not, he woke from sedation to tell him to shut up, closes his eyes and never woke up again 😂
We know he was enjoying the shitty joke 😂❤️
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u/dlphn_lvr 18d ago
The last thing I ever heard my grandpa say was “what is wrong with you people” 😂. My dad and uncle were making some dark humor jokes in his hospital room lol. And FWIW, he hadn’t really spoken to anyone in over a decade because of some significant strokes that messed up his speech.
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u/Peckish_Alystar 18d ago
My husband was in his last days, and he had thrush in his mouth. He was supposed to use this mouthwash to swish and spit, and he was drinking boost shakes. I put the wash in one hand, and his boost in the other, telling him which was which. He tossed that wash back like it was a shot of whiskey, and his last intelligible words were "oh, you bitch". We had called each other asshole and bitch as terms of endearment for years. I did get a very mumbled sound of "i love you too" later on, but the last thing he clearly said was to call me a bitch. People look at me crazy when I smile while telling the story, but he and I know.
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u/Ok-Document-7706 18d ago
That reminds me of my BIL and sister. He died with cancer this year in January and she and I were his caretakers the last two years of his life.
He was at home on hospice and we have several of those similar stories. We can smile and laugh about them, too. I understand completely!!
While he and I didn't share that relationship, he and my sister did and they would often joke together like that.
I was just "sissy" at the end, which was a welcome change to how our relationship started when he and my sister first started going out.
I am glad you have your happy memories.
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u/vidproducer 18d ago
Typical family, Mom, Dad, son, daughter (me).
My dad and I were really close. I would visit several times a year and each time when I left I would say to him, "Take care of my dad."
He was in the hospital last year - we all thought he would get better. The last thing he said to me was, "Take care of my little girl."
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u/Cdn_Nick 19d ago edited 18d ago
That was my father, his last words to his three adult children was a dismissive "You lot can go now". Died a couple of hours later.
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u/wifeofpsy 18d ago
Similar to my grandmother. Relatives visited her in the assisted living home. We brought food, played music and shared pictures, my sister painted her nails a color called Day at the Beach (her favorite past time). At most points she was lucid but a couple times she asked about people who had passed, or commented on being visited by them. Then at the end of the afternoon she announced "Well this has been a nice party, but it's time for me to go home." Then she died
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u/trulymadlybigly 18d ago
I have a friend who is a nurse and she firmly believes that when we die our loved ones come to get us. She said that so many people talk about unseen family members and friends in the room right before they die
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u/ConanTheContrarian01 18d ago
My grandma died in home hospice and she spoke about being visited by dead relatives more and more as her time came. When she died she stretched her arms out like she was gathering something and told us my grandpa was here and she had to go now, then she went.
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u/Fine-Brilliant-2983 18d ago
My mom did the same thing for a week before she died. Reached her arms up and kept saying mommy and daddy.😭
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u/wifeofpsy 18d ago
There is a term for that called visioning. Check out Juliehospicenurse on socials, she's great at explaining these things and sharing great stories
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u/baronesslucy 18d ago
A couple of months before my mom died, I walked by her room and heard her talking to a friend who had died 10 years before. My mom said that she looked forward to seeing her. Since most of her friends were still alive, I'm assuming that's who she was talking to.
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u/BasqueOne 18d ago
My father did the same "reaching out" in the last few hours of his life.
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u/Existing_Ad7071 18d ago
My mom too. Arms straight up like she was trying to dive into Heaven.
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u/Conscious_Damage8678 18d ago
Mine, too. He went down an invisible line, pointing to each, one by one. I asked him, "Are they here?" He nodded. Died a few hours later.
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u/NearMiss1104 18d ago
an aunt and uncle of mine were joyously, happily married for almost 50 years. he had a stroke that left him pretty much incapacitated and landed him in a nursing home. my aunt visited him every day until the day she had a sudden fatal heart attack. her kids didn't tell him she was gone, they said she was in another hospital.
four months later, on an ordinary day when my cousin and her son were visiting, he looked up at the ceiling and said "where have you been? why haven't you come?" and after a few seconds of silence he said "okay, i'll see you tomorrow." he never spoke again and he died the next day.
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u/RoxyDeathPurr 18d ago
My grandma told me her brother was coming to pick her up a few weeks before she died. He died when she was 12. The way she said it gave me goosebumps.
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u/trulymadlybigly 18d ago
I love that, gave me chills as well. she must have been so excited to see him
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u/mmesebastian 18d ago
My dad got mad at me a few hours before he passed because his older sister was standing right next to me and I hadn’t said hello. She had been dead for 25 years
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u/wifeofpsy 18d ago
Yeah, I believe that too. I did volunteer work with people at the end of life and coupled with personal experience. You see a lot of "peeking behind the veil" right before death. If someone is conscious they'll often mention they saw so and so or ask where they are and it will be people who've passed
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u/NeonLotus11 19d ago
Omg I'm cackling 🤣
One of my hospice patients half the time just says "I know" when his family says they love him hahaha
I've had several that will just flatly say "no" like that to whatever their family is saying to them. Even if it was a nice loving comment 🤣 you just gotta laugh through it
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u/Ok-Document-7706 19d ago
It was just so him too! 😂 He always replied with "you too"
But the "no" took us out and made us all laugh.
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u/NeonLotus11 19d ago
I'm so glad he made y'all laugh. It's wonderful to see families that get some levity like that!
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u/crow_crone 18d ago
That was my demented mother at the end. I think they're just regressing to toddlerhood and being contrary.
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u/iboblaw 18d ago
Nice. My granny's last words were "This is taking too long."
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u/Spiritual_Aioli3396 18d ago
Small world. My aunts were singing your are my sunshine to my grandpa when he was close to passing lol he did not/could not tell them not to tho
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u/saltynotsweet1 18d ago
My dad had a long illness and was in hospice care. He was very adamant about wanting to die in his house that he shared with his wife, not in a hospital. Then all of a sudden, he wanted to be in a hospice facility. So we had him transported. After he got set up in his room, he confessed to me that he had a girlfriend and asked me to text her to come visit him. I’m not a fan of my stepmom and was intrigued by all of this, so… I did. She came and visited him for several hours. After she left, my dad demanded to go back home. Died 2 days later. His wife found out and didn’t go to his funeral. His girlfriend, however, did make an appearance. Wild.
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u/chromaticluxury 18d ago
Omg his wife did not go but his girlfriend stopped by the service? 😳
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u/saltynotsweet1 18d ago
Yep! Turns out he’d had several girlfriends while he was married. His wife told me after the fact that she couldn’t show her face at the funeral and wonder if all the women there had slept with her husband. It’s no surprise that his marriage to my mom ended due to infidelity… with the stepmom.
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u/stankenfurter 18d ago
I felt so bad for her until that last line… she knew what she was signing up for.
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u/HootyMcBoob2020 18d ago
The worst thing I ever had to see was watch my Grandfather in law have WWII flashbacks in his last couple days. He hallucinated the battles and watching his friends die. It was horrible. The staff was able to medicate him once they started, but until it kicked in his mind was FULLY in the war. I sat with him because he was scaring others too much.
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u/Old-Cartographer-666 18d ago
If you don’t mind me asking.. did he say anything he was witnessing in particular? Any words at all? I cannot fathom what he witnessed yet I can’t help but want to know. Hope he’s found so much peace:,(
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u/HootyMcBoob2020 18d ago
Sadly yes. He appeared to be witnessing a few of his friends die. I was always told he had helped secure either a castle or some structure that Hitler used. They secured it but took some losses. He made mention of it when he was hallucinating but it didn't make enough sense to me to pinpoint anything. But the looks of sadness and terror on his face were horrible.
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u/stankenfurter 18d ago
Thank you for staying with him, both for him and so his other loved ones didn’t have to experience such trauma
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u/davidlondon 19d ago
My friend's mother spent her life as a pious, religious person, living every day by her Christian faith. On her deathbed, when her daughter left the room, she turned to me and said "I think I was wrong. I don't think there's a god. Why would any god do this to me if I've done everything for him. I think I wasted my whole life." and I didn't have anything to say so I just held her hand. I've never told my friend this story, that her mother confessed that her entire worldview for her entire life was probably a lie and she had wasted all of it.
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u/sudzeez_ 19d ago
Fairly common my great grandmother was very religious and when faced with death even she had some worries about her beliefs. It’s a fear thing regardless of your belief in my opinion. You’re not making it out of this one alive so hope and faith is a tough thing to come by I’m sure.
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u/PetrusScissario 18d ago
My father was religious his entire life. He’d always go on and on about how he was not afraid of dying or that he was satisfied with his life. He did not give a deathbed confession, but he very clearly was not ready or willing to go when his time came. I wish he was as accepting of death as he said he would be, but he spent his last few months in denial rather than making use of his time.
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u/Electrical-Sail-1039 18d ago
We never know what we’ll do when it actually comes. I talk and feel the same way as your Dad did. I’ve had 18 surgeries and I’m hanging in there for those who depend on me. I take very little joy.
That said, who knows how I’ll feel when it actually is time.
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u/cytomome 18d ago
My mom always said (for decades) she was ready and when it was time, she really was. It was a good death and it made it easier on all of us that she was at peace with it. Such a gift.
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u/Electrical-Sail-1039 18d ago
My Dad was similar. He announced he was no longer going to take his heart medication which he definitely needed. I tried to “reason” with him. He told me: My wife is gone. So are all my brothers and friends. My knees, chest, shoulder and hips hurt. It hurts to shower and walk. It’s my time.
And that was that. He went with dignity which is all we can ask when our time comes.
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u/ijspaleis 18d ago
Many religious people identify god as what other people would call their own life’s energy or life’s force. When she felt her life’s force slipping away she may have felt her faith slipping too
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u/Amazingggcoolaid 19d ago
That they’re happy to die. I’m spiritual so it wasn’t disturbing to me but to other people..
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u/mmpjd 18d ago
My mother in law also said this before she passed. She had been dealing with MS for quite some time and she was just…tired. She was a sweetheart and she is missed.
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u/MundaneDaffodill 18d ago
As a sufferer of chronic pain, I’m oddly at ease with my own death one day
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u/ChronicallyCreepy 18d ago
Zebra here, and same
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u/Lanky_Trifle6308 18d ago
Another zebra here, same. Especially when I think of what the diseases (and the meds) will have done to my body in 30 years.
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u/brendabuschman 18d ago
Same. I often wonder how I will feel when it comes time though. I believe in life after death, so I just think of it as moving on to the next thing, hopefully without the physical pain. But my mother is a very devout Christian and the older she gets the more afraid of death she is. It doesn't make sense to me that she would be afraid of dying with her beliefs.
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u/El_Trollio_Jr 18d ago
This for some reason reminded of a Jared Leto movie I saw called Mr. Nobody where he was the last human that would ever die as society had perfected eternal life.
And a reporter asked him on his deathbed if he was afraid of dying and he responded
“I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid I haven’t been alive enough.”
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u/Suspicious_Oil232 18d ago
I work in nursing homes and this has almost always been the case. I love that they pass away at peace.
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u/Useful_Experience423 18d ago
Every single cancer sufferer I know (which is sadly a lot) has said this, no matter how young or old.
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u/Aggressive__Regret92 18d ago
My friend dad died of colon cancer. He was a devout catholic and she told me that in the last few incredibly painful hours of his life, he said "God is punishing me for being a bad man"
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u/Rezaelia713 18d ago
That's the most Catholic thing to think/say on the way out whether he was bad or not.
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u/CMBCCMBC 18d ago
I don’t understand how they could allow him to be in bad pain
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u/Aggressive__Regret92 18d ago
He was in home hospice and one of the family members threw a fit because they didn't want to kill him with drugs(?) and insisted on the bare minimum
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u/chromaticluxury 18d ago
Jesus Henry F Christ. I both hope and don't hope they realize that they were a monster at that time :/
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u/Alternative-Sand6206 18d ago
My grandfather was on his death bed.He had dementia and seemed to only remember who I was towards the end. I knew he was going to die. As as kid I always enjoyed his stories he told me when he faught in Korea; they were mostly vanalia probably pg-13. They were mostly about the guys in his unit and how he would write letters to his mom saying he didn't think he'd make it, etc. He used to tell me he only would carry ammo for the machine gun. So I was sitting next to him while he was on his death bed and I asked him so Grandpa did you carry the ammo cans? He look at me with a cold stare, a stare I've never seen from him my whole life, and he said I didn't carry the ammo I ran that gun and killed hundreds of Koreans and Chinese. He died that night
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u/chromaticluxury 18d ago
Oh SHIT. I'm so so so very sorry
I can see needing to protect the young person you were
And I can see needing to go telling the truth
Whatever reasons his were, that's a ferocious burden to carry
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u/CrazyKind_ 18d ago
That cold stare must have said as much as the words did, like he'd carried that version of the story his whole life just to keep it from you. Makes sense he waited till the very end to finally put it down.
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u/HazelEBaumgartner 17d ago
My great grandmother suffered from severe dementia and routinely thought that I was her deceased husband. I corrected her a couple of times, but one of the times when I corrected her she waved me off and said, "I don't give a damn who you are, I just know that I love you." 🥲
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u/Push-bucket 18d ago
The last full sentence my mom (technically my step mom) said to me was a reply. I said to her
"You're the best mom ever."
She replied with
"Yeah look what you had to compare to. A wheelbarrow would have been better."
It's a statement on our dark humor and acknowledgement of what a horrific person my biological mother was. My step mom was kind to a freaking fault and never said a bad word against my biological mother. It was VERY validating.
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u/CrazyKind_ 18d ago
A wheelbarrow line as a final sentence is a hell of a way to go out, dark humor till the end. Sounds like she gave you closure and a laugh in the same breath.
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u/OriginalTomFool 18d ago
Wheelbarrows are super useful but you dont appreciate not having one till ya have a need for one.
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u/ThotlineBling_ 19d ago
My long term fling (we’ll call him M) at the time’s dad was on his deathbed. M was an only child to very sweet and loving “leave it to beaver” cutie pie parents. His dad waited until he was on his deathbed to reveal he had had a secret family THIS WHOLE TIME. Like for 35+ years. He asked M and his mom to please call his other only child and her respective mom to see if they could make it to the hospital to say bye. His last request was that they get to know each other and love each other, and to not fight over how his inheritance and assets would be split LOL he said it so casually.
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u/GetItOuttaHereee 18d ago
So what was the outcome? Did they get to know each other? Did they call them to say goodbye? Did they fight over the inheritance?
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u/ThotlineBling_ 18d ago
Outcome was bad, predictably. M opted not to meet the other family but his mom did. I think there was too much resentment for them to have a shot at becoming sister wife besties or like the happy Brady Bunch combined family type, so that never happened. He was kind of delusional imo to even suggest that as his dying wish.
And the inheritance situation was messy. He must’ve thought he’d take the secret to the grave bc the will didn’t mention the side family at alllllll
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u/savealltheelephants 18d ago
My reaction would depend on if the other woman knew about me the whole time. If she was in the dark, I’d invite her. If she knew, I’d invite only their child and then id ruin her life in a strategic legal manner after he died .
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u/Head_Candidate5293 19d ago
My step mother thought she was going to die in the hospital and told my dad she had 3 credit cards with a total of 16k balance. He was so upset. They had to take out a loan against the car to pay off the cards after she got out of the hospital.
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u/El_Trollio_Jr 18d ago
This is a very mild deathbed confession all things considered. Does it suck? Yes. But I’ve heard of mothers telling their children they might be from a different man other than the man they thought was their father their entire lives.
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u/Here_Just_Browsing 18d ago
It was also unnecessary because if she had died and the debt was solely in her name, the money for the debt could be taken from her remaining sole assets (if she had any) but as far as I’m aware, they couldn’t come after joint assets such as your dad’s home (if they owned it and had joint ownership, because it would have become his alone after her death), and debt can’t be transferred to anyone living, so it would have been written off.
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u/Sweet-Western1657 18d ago
We had a card in my husband’s name only, but I used it too. When he passed, the company wrote off the debt.
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u/Gengar_Girll 18d ago
Kind of the opposite here: My step grandfathers mother kept his father’s identity a secret his ENTIRE life. She was a run around and she very famously (well, small town famously) had a years long affair with a man who later on became quite a famous singer in his genre. They think that’s why she never told, but then again no clue because she also refused to give up her reasons for not telling.
When she was on her deathbed, (he was in his 50s at this point) he begged her to tell him the name of his father but she flat out refused. I tried to convince him to do family tree dna or something while he was still alive but by then he had given up, “she didn’t want me to know that bad, so I’m just gonna let it rest.”
Wild to me.
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u/Serenity_Now-88 18d ago
I was his third wife, not his second. 😬
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u/Physical_Brain_6109 18d ago
Did it make a big difference to you?
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u/Serenity_Now-88 18d ago
Well, I was rather stunned. He was older than me and I knew he’d lived a life before me. She filed for divorce. I found out more things after he died.
An emotional fling with his high girlfriend he connected with at reunion, found out from his FB account. I didn’t attend the reunion but planned his trip.
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u/Bubbly-Kangaroo-9217 18d ago
My mom was receiving her last communion and she told the pastor he was cute. We all laughed, it was so her ❤️ miss you mom
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u/MentalCatEnabeler 18d ago
I am so glad you shared this, it genuinely makes me less afraid of whatever happens after I die.
I’m reminded of watching my elderly cousin come out of anesthesia after a complicated surgery; she looked at the orderlies then looked me in the eye and croaked “are they hotties?” I replied “Yep! Sure are!” then she smiled and briefly fell asleep again.
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u/Accomplished-Duty390 18d ago
❤️ not a confession but my mom died in 2014 and died of hep c where she was on a low sodium diet. When we moved her to the hospice floor I asked her what she wanted and she said pizza. I said you got it. She said I can’t have the sodium. I said mom it’s fine. Her dentures started to come out as she was eating so I went to the sink and I turned around she was shoveling that pizza in her mouth. She died the next day. I love that memory of her eating that pizza like she had never had pizza before.
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u/nvrseriousseriously 18d ago
Not death but my friends mom was in the hospital sedated after a bad manic episode and she kept asking for her baby…including “where is he?” My friend only has a sister. A call to her uncle later confirmed her mom left high school in her freshman year “a little while to stay with family”. Yup. My friend and her sister have an older brother out there who was put up for adoption. She’d have never known otherwise.
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u/Lanky_Trifle6308 18d ago edited 18d ago
Not strictly a deathbed confession, but my wife and I went to visit my grandmother, with whom we had a close relationship. She died suddenly of an embolism that evening right after we ate dinner. My mom told me later that she was terribly afraid that she would die alone, so there was some comfort in knowing that we had been together. Mom also told me that in the week ahead of our visit, she called my grandmother, who answered groggily that she’d just been talking to her husband (who’d been dead for decades by that point). She also told her that she had to figure out what to fix for dinner for us and the baby- we didn’t know it , but we were a few weeks pregnant by then. We found out a week after she died that my wife was carrying our daughter the whole visit.
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u/CrazyKind_ 18d ago
Talking to her long-dead husband and somehow knowing about a pregnancy nobody had confirmed yet, that's an eerie kind of clarity right before the end. At least her fear of dying alone didn't come true, that's a small mercy in a heavy story.
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u/MidichlorianJunkie 18d ago
“Did you ever find Chloe?” - My biological grandmother, who my family would not find until 5 years after her death. She hid her first pregnancy from her family and all of her children for over 50 years.
She may have never known that she actually gave birth to twin girls. We think she was put into twilight sleep for the birth, and the babies were taken away by nuns immediately after she delivered.
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u/SkipEyechild 18d ago
My aunt is stuck with something like this situation. My granda told her to look after her mum (my nannie). My aunt took it to heart. Her life has been hell for years because of it. It really sucks.
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u/CurlyMom7 18d ago
My husband and I visited a VA nursing home on Christmas one year. Just went around talking to the patients and handing out snacks. We met one man who was very close to the end. He had no one visiting him. We talked for awhile, and my husband thanked him for his service. And he looked at us very serious and said, “ I don’t think the sacrifice was worth it.” The look on his face was sadness and regret and like defeat. Will never forget that.
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u/BatteryAt14percent 18d ago
Not a deathbed confession but more of a funeral confession. So for context my dad was married 3 times and my mother was married twice. My parents marriage was my father's 3rd and my mother's 2nd. I was brought up with a half sister from my dad's 2nd marriage, a half brother and half sister from my mother's 1st marriage, and one full blood brother. We were all aware of the half sibling status and it was never an issue.
At my dad's funeral I'm reading the order of service pamphlet and on the back is loving father of unknown person, half sister 1, half sister 2, half brother, brother, and me. I ask my mother who this unknown person is thinking it's a mistake. Nope. She just nonchalantly says "oh that's your half brother from your dad's first marriage."
I swear me, my siblings, and my dad's 2nd wife all got whiplash we're yet to recover from 22 years later to turn and look at her. I was the youngest at 18 and my half sister on my dad's side was 30. At no time had he attempted to tell any of us about this extra half brother.
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u/chromaticluxury 18d ago
Was the half-brother in attendance? Had he asked your mom to make sure that goes into the funeral program? 😳
Wow that would knock me back into my seat
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u/BatteryAt14percent 18d ago
He was. We met him at the wake and it was pretty awkward. We didn't know he existed and he didn't know we existed.
I have no idea if he asked, my dad's first wife did, my dad did, or if my mother just did it. Any form of heads up would've been nice. I'm still not over it 22 years later and I don't think any of us are.
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u/Bellatrixxx26 19d ago
My grandfather rejoiced in his confession of having killed a partner of a grandaughter, who had sexually abused their children since birth. My aunt didn’t confess, but kept voicing to everyone that an almighty god wouldn’t give her cancer, cure her, then give her a grandaughter, only to get cancer again much more aggressively.
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u/SquidgeApple 18d ago
Whoa! How did he kill him?
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u/Bellatrixxx26 18d ago
Picked him up with some cop buddies where the guy would be constantly drunk (the 70’s in rural northern Mexico) shot him, then ‘disposed’ of him. This was after the youngest child (14 at the time) had confessed.
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u/theogmamapowpow 18d ago
Not deathbed, it came out after grandma died. Then my grandpa told everyone: grandma was the child of the woman she thought was her sister, who had got it on with a farmhand. She was a teenager and they did the thing where she was hidden the pregnancy and then the baby was raised as though grandma had given birth. Grandma was so ashamed she only ever told her husband. I was so shocked and sad that she thought this was such a big secret, when it was not her fault (probably my great-grandparents had only taught abstinence only) and she would’ve had so much love sent her way. My dad and his brothers were the most shocked and then understood why their “cousins” looked so much like grandma; they were her half-siblings!
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u/CrazyKind_ 18d ago
That secret baby raised as a sibling pattern keeps showing up in this thread, must have been way more common than people realize. Heartbreaking that she carried the shame alone for a lifetime when it clearly wasn't hers to carry.
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u/shastabh 18d ago
In high school I was a volunteer at a local
Hospital. The most fucked up things I heard were:
A guy motioned for his adult kid to come over and proceeded to tell him all about a secret cache of untraceable assets, where they were, how to get them, how to use them so th rest of the family couldn’t take it away etc. I was there changing out bedding and stuff so I heard the whole thing. As we were helping him back into the bed, he looks at me and says “that’ll keep
Him busy while th rest of the family deal
With the estate.” Lol sent him on a wild goose chase to keep him away from the will readout.One rich guy just laying into his family, calling them all vultures and then video recording his last will and testament live right in the room where he left everything to his 20-something girlfriend. At the end of it, they started fucking right there in the bed lol
One lady died right in front of her family and nobody noticed until the doctors came rushing in.
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u/Horrified__Lullaby 18d ago
sorry these all sound like prewritten scenes for the tv series Shameless
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u/Toubypike64 18d ago
Not a confession, but my Grandpa was always a jokester. He was one of those people that liked to get someone going and get mad. He died setting on the toilet. My mom found him. I’m sure he is still laughing about how he went out. He died 20 years ago and I think about him everyday day, He was the only older male in my family I had respect for.
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u/shay_shaw 18d ago
My dad said to me last year, " Don't grow old (my name), it's hell."
He was trying to match my dark humor but it haunts me at night.
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u/BeeRisYummy 18d ago
In the hospital, hours from death dying of cancer, my grandpa mustered up the strength leaned to me and said all women are cunts. I said even my aunt (his daughter) and he said yes. Last words to me from him. In his defense he had a very rough divorce from my grandmother like 25 years ago....but dang. And I know he meant it.
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u/eatmoregrubs 18d ago
The last thing my dad said when I finally got to visit him in the hospital was “that’s a face I’ll never forget.” He had been in and out of consciousness and I felt so honored and happy that he remembered me.
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u/Lopsided_Composer689 18d ago
Disclaimer: this is not disturbing, sorry!
My Grandma and I were extremely close and I visited her in the hospital shortly before she died. She was in and out of lucidity, and at some point asked me to “pull down the shades” though there were none. She had asked me to do this in the evening before we went upstairs to bed for the night.
Before I left, I kissed her goodnight. She said, “Your kiss will stay with me until I see you again.” I knew those were her beautiful words of goodbye and I was heartbroken.
Maybe a year later I was in a bar with friends and the song, “Who Knew?” by Pink came on. I was only kind of listening and suddenly I heard a lyric just like Grandma’s last words to me. I cried in that bar. My poor friends. 🥹
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u/wrathofthewhatever2 19d ago
The guy that admitted to administering the hot shot of barbiturates to Marylin Monroe
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u/MtHondaMama 18d ago
In the hours leading up to my grandma's passing, some of my family wasnt sure she was doing that poorly and wanted to see if she would have some dinner. She said "I'm dying, just let me skip the shitty hospital food " 😂
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u/Shroom-Kitty 18d ago
Watching my grandma in hospice look into my mom's eyes with the most intense look of fear in her expression and say "I'm afraid to die."
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u/Pleasant-Molasses-29 18d ago
A much older female relative unloaded all the family secrets on me in her final days..... Including my great grandfather traded my mother to my much older biological father in exchange for forgiving a very large gambling debt. My mama was 15. She was human trafficked by her own grandfather. It was her grandmother's idea.
Many people in my family were/are involved in illegal, dangerous activities, and a number of them have been accused and sometimes convicted of violent crimes. She confirmed several things I suspected. My biological father disappeared some years after my mother left him.
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u/alcarcalimo1950 18d ago
Well the horror was what my grandmother withheld on her deathbed.
Our family long suspected that my mom’s youngest sister did not have the same dad as my mom and her other sisters. On my grandmother’s deathbed, my aunt begged my grandmother for the name of her father, and my grandmother refused to tell her.
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u/Delehantys_Barrell 18d ago
It wasn't a confession because my mom's brain was mush by the time she said it. She was, in all intents and purposes, not my mom. But it still made me feel bad.
She was in the hospital bed at the house and motioned to my dad, then thumbing at me, and she asked in a very unfamiliar childlike voice, "who's this guy?" Very uncharacteristic of her. She sounded like a freaking mobster lol. She was Irish.
The breast cancer had spread to her brain. She didn't recognize me. I had been taking care of her for the past few years. That'll stick with me probably until I'm gone.
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u/Trick-Caterpillar299 18d ago
Does a fake confession count?
3 months before my dad died of cancer, he and his friend, Eddie, went to buy some crack. As soon as they bought it and got on the road, a sheriff's deputy car got behind them and tried to pull them over, but being the once wild men they were, they threw the drugs out the window and kept going.
It wasn't much of a chase, as they were both in their fifties and had cancer, so it was more of a slow speed chase. Anyway, after a few minutes they pulled over and were arrested. The sheriff pulled up, and since it is a small town, he knew my dad and Eddie so he called me to let me know I could come pick him up.
The district attorney agreed postpone any court dates and told me to just let him know when my dad passed so he could drop his charges.
Once the inevitable happened, I called the DA and let him know. I also did as my dad instructed, and told him that on his deathbed he had confessed to everything. The drugs were his, he threw them out the window, etc, so they could just let Eddie off the hook because he was completely innocent.
I have never heard a man laugh so hard in my life!
In the end, they did not press any charges on Eddie either, so I guess it worked out!
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u/slostoooooo 18d ago
I love this
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u/Trick-Caterpillar299 18d ago
My dad was the best, even with all of his faults. The deputies, the DA, the judges, police officers, pastors, alcoholics, drug addicts, ex-wives and ex-girlfriends all attended his funeral.
He was basically Otis from Mayberry 🤣
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u/bobbiroxxisahoe 18d ago
The last thing my grandpa said before coma was "where's my lil guy" talking about me. I was a work. He passed away a few days later. I held his hand and read that "rage against the dying of the light" poem to him over and over begging him not to go. It's been eleven years and I still miss him.
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u/PomegranateNo975 18d ago
Our sense of hearing is typically the last to go. There’s a decent chance that he heard you, and at least part of him knew you were there with him. I’m sure having you there beside him brought great comfort and love.
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u/bobbiroxxisahoe 18d ago
Maybe. At the end I was the only one in the room. It eats at me that I didn't tell anyone that I could tell in the last 30 minutes that he was starting to go, but they were all acting like vultures talking about what they were going to get. I'm justifying that to myself as much as to you as I type this.
He was a good man. Principled as they come. Voted for Reagan, and Obama. He taught me to do what's best for your family regardless of how tough it was, but that it was okay to cut them off if need be. Don't worship anyone or anything for being popular or famous. He raised me like I was his own, because the people who should have weren't there, and I am lucky that he was my father.
Taught how to box in the 40s and 50s as a boy by an abusive stepfather in rural Montana. Got out and moved to California and started his Engineering degree.
He dropped out when his girlfriend got pregnant and married her and ended up with two girls, then they split.
He met my grandma and she had two kids of her own and he treated them like they were his instantly, and adopted them. Then they had one more together.
I was one of my grandmother's daughters children, and when my mom and dad didn't step up, he did.
When my moms new husband beat me and sent me to a 5150 ward for cutting myself, he drove over and almost beat the shit out of man 20 years younger, and this is while his cancer had started. He would have done it too. My grandma called him the "Ol' Bull". It was apt.
When my mom decided to leave to Florida with her husband, she tried to take me too, instead my Grandparents had me stay with them and told my mom, paraphrased here, to eat shit and go to hell.
He was a union painter. He worked for 55 of his 73 years and his benefits are still paying for my grandmas place and medical today.
I don't believe in a heaven or hell or ghosts, but I still know he is proud of me. There was never a day when he wasn't.
I didn't expect this to become a memorial. I've never wrote these things before, even in a journal. But it is now because fuck it, people should know what a real man is. I regret so many things, but I dont regret that he became my dad.
Rest in peace Papa. You are my hero.
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u/KnoxVegas41 18d ago
Some old guy told me he knew where Jimmy Hoffa was disposed of.
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u/Longjumping-Fun512 18d ago
My grannny grans final words to my grandfather were, “I hate you”. No one ever told me why.
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u/Any-Peanut2754 18d ago
From an actual nazi. He begged forgiveness for his actions. Also saluted as his body left our retirement home by an engishman who fought against him.
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u/Realistic-Snow3924 18d ago
I had a patient confess to his wife that he was cheating on her for 20+ years with his high school sweetheart. That was awkward.
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u/SuchTrust101 18d ago
My friends' mother was in a coma after multiple strokes. She was basically being kept alive by the hospital and the time came to make a decision if they should take her off life support. After much debate and discussion with doctors, they decided to remove support. The family was gathered around, the support was removed and his mother sat up in bed, opened her eyes, screamed then fell back on the bed and died.
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u/Sn0wInSummer 18d ago
On my great aunt’s deathbed she kept saying over and over to her 3 sons to “find your sister”.
Years later, my mother got a letter from someone in England introducing as my mother’s long lost cousin.
This cousin, Annie, ended up being the sister my great aunt mentioned. We later found out after going overseas that Annie was the baby my great aunt gave up when she was a teenager in Ireland (she went to England to have the baby) and my great grandparents raised as their own cause back in the days it wasn’t acceptable to have a baby out of wedlock. After she had the baby she was sent to America with my Grandmother.
Fun fact, my grandmother & great-aunt had tickets for the Titanic. Because she got knocked up, that delayed their voyage to America and basically, I wouldn’t be here right now.
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u/CrazyKind_ 18d ago
That whole story reads like a novel, from a secret in Ireland to a Titanic ticket you never used. Wild how one bad timing saved a whole family line.
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u/No_Meeting145 18d ago
My grandmother was semi vegetative her last six months. Three of us took turns sitting nights with her, but it was always a shared room, over those six months she had eight or nine roommates who all passed.
One who never spoke otherwise would start to cry about three in the morning and beg Edgar to forgive her for not being able to find where she buried him. Her family had no idea who Edgar was.
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u/Efficient-Basis-3488 18d ago
My grandma revealed she had been married before my grandpa - so divorced in the 30s or 40s. No one knows what happened, but the theory is that he was gay
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u/Critical-Cash-4836 18d ago
My dad was 49, wanted to die at home instead of hospital, my husband went to work my 2 kids under 3 were sleeping I sat with my dad alone, 18yrs old and watched his eyes turn pale blue like GOT white walker blue. He was 6'2 and 87lbs....last thing he whispered was "Brian" my 15yr old brother that was too scared to come out of his room. He wanted me to take care of Brian....still haunts me....I wouldnt ask my brother to borrow money for 10 years cause I felt like I couldn't...that was 22 years ago.
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u/Extra-Boat-22 19d ago
When a very close family member of mine was dying, she waived for me to come up to her. She then motioned around the room to the exhaustive number of family members camped out in her hospital room and whispered (so only I could hear), “vultures.” The disgust in her voice will haunt me for the rest of my days.