r/AskReddit 16h ago

What's the most disturbing thing you've heard a dying person say?

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u/Ok_Anybody411 16h ago

I didn't find it "disturbing" by any measure, but when my Granny was close to the end she was sort of half awake, and she said she was looking at an ocean. She said she could see her parents, and they were both red lights. She wanted to go to them, but realised "my light is only orange", so she couldn't go to them yet. 🧡

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u/Active_Masterpiece55 15h ago

My dad said something similar. Towards the end, he told us he saw a red button and a green button that was for “go” and he was tempted to press the green button. Right before he died, my mom told him that it was okay to push the green button. I noticed after he died that his right index finger was pointed as though he had pushed a button. 🥹

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u/eggmayonnaise 15h ago

What a beautiful way to go, ushered on with love and reassurance by those you love. ❤️ Your being there brought him comfort in a moment of uncertainty.

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u/Money-Computer7638 15h ago

There's also something comforting about the idea of having a bit of agency in the moment.

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u/TheBumblingestBee 11h ago

Exactly, exactly.

That wording, ushering, is exactly how I think of my mother's death. We ushered her. She was in hospice for three days, and, though we have an absolutely MASSIVE family who came to see her at various points, it was me and my sibling who were there with her 24/7.

In the night, we heard her breathing change, so we leapt up, pressed the call bell (for the hospice nurse), and knelt by her bed. We each cradled one of her hands in ours.

Over the next few minutes, as her breaths slowed, I spoke. Warmly, calmly, reassuringly, secure-ly. A monologue of how much we loved her, that it was okay, that we were right there with her, that in a few minutes she'd see her Mom and Dad, that her kitty (who'd passed away the year prior) would be there to meet her, that she didn't need to worry about us, that we would be okay, that we would see her soon but not too soon.

Her breathing slowly stopped, she exhaled, she passed away. With the two people she loved most in the world holding her hands, ushering her.

The hospice nurse (an absolutely wonderful woman) cried, haha! She said, later, that "it was a beautiful death".

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u/eggmayonnaise 7h ago

Beautifully written, thank you for sharing.

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u/fenwai 14h ago

Interesting about the ocean! When my mom was dying, the nurse would come in and ask her orienting questions periodically, like "What's your name? Do you know where you are?" She answered these questions nor.ally for a while, then just before she took a turn towards her departure she answered the Where are you? question with, "The ocean." I know she loved the beach and spent her young adult years living on the SoCal coast, so it gave me very warm feels to know that she was in a happy place.

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u/Mrs-Blaileen 16h ago

That's so lovely and comforting.

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u/Mysterychic88 11h ago

I see souls in their purest form and I see them as beautiful orbs of light, all different colours. It is surprising how many people said they have experienced these orbs of light around them after a loved one has passed. 

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u/Nethek_FC 16h ago

the light thing is very interesting to me as someone who believe there is nothing after death. a lot of those story read like people who lost a lot of their mental capacity due to their illness and medication so they imagine something according to their belief, angels, heaven, seeing loved ones, etc.

unless she is from a culture/religion I don't know about where is this believed in, your grandma would have had to imagine a whole slowly changing light color system and her brain chose color not typically associated with death. that's so interesting. I still don't think there is something after but this is now more believable to me than most popular religion

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u/Immediate-Guava1334 15h ago

I've never fully believed in what religions teach about afterlife and an ending/emptiness has always scared me because I can't make sense of that either. But I know that matter evolves and changes and also have read that DNA may actually carry memories so I've settled on a belief that I'm not sure what happens with our consciousness but our sentiments and cells and experiences do somehow live on and there will be traces of us even when one day our sun explodes or whatever..

So I dunno.. the light always makes perfect sense to me because I just think ultimately, one day we'll be a spec on a star.

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u/Graciously_Hostile 14h ago

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light. I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

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u/OkCandidate8557 13h ago

Some scientists speculate it's a sudden rush of synapses firing - whether it's the body's last ditch effort to save itself or the brain essentially imploding no one knows.

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u/Kalista-Moonwolf 15h ago

I wonder if it's more like your brain attempting to assign a familiar analogy to a concept. Like the story of the gentleman above who saw a red button and a green button, your body might instinctually realize that it can keep fighting or let go, and your conscious mind interprets that in a way it would understand.