The unavoidable reality is that everything we’re doing is temporary. We will all pass away. And when your life is nearing its end, you start to realize what the most important, fundamental things are. Suddenly, there’s no real reason to keep lying, neither to yourself nor to others. However, the truth isn’t always pleasant to hear.
Internet users have been opening up on Quora about the most shocking, sad, and wild deathbed confessions that they have personally witnessed. Scroll down to read what they heard.
Just be warned, many of these stories are very sensitive, emotionally intense, and potentially triggering.
#1
When I was in school I was shadowing an ICU nurse and we were taking care of an elderly woman dying of brain cancer. One day when her family went home for the night and we were getting her ready for bed she randomly blurts out “should I tell him they’re not his.”
She was referring to her children and husband who had just left. She elaborated and told us that their two children are both another man’s! And not just any man’s, but her husbands childhood best friend!!! What made this even crazier was that her children were probably 50 years old! I have no idea how this had stayed a secret for so long.
Fast forward to the next morning and I see an unfamiliar older gentleman in her room. Before I said anything to anyone the nurse I was shadowing whispers to me that that is the childhood best friend! I don’t know whether or not they were still messing around but I don’t think I have ever seen a secret 50-year-old love triangle.
We told her that she should not tell the husband and children. If it’s been a secret this long, there’s no point to tell them on your deathbed. But were we right for that? What would you have told her?
Image source: Nilfie Alvarado, Getty Images
#2
As a nurse, I’ve been with many right as they pass. The confession came from a 102-year-old lady. She was so nice and polite and would never ask for a thing. She outlived her children and husband; the rest of the family lived across the country. I sat with her for a few minutes after giving her pain medication. She stated, ‘I love the Lord, but I’m not going to see him.’ I told her that she had a spot in heaven waiting for her. She still said, ‘No.’
Turns out that she got pregnant at 17, while unmarried, with a boy she didn’t even know well. Which would have been a big deal back then. She hid her pregnancy and gave birth in the family barn. Scared and knowing that if her family found out about any of this, she would be kicked out and labeled, she wrapped up the baby and placed it in a pond on the family farm.
I thought my heart stopped when she told me her story. Soon, she fell asleep and passed about an hour later.
Image source: Brittany Poplin, Curated Lifestyle
#3
I had a patient, 96yo woman. She had one son who always looked after her, came to see her and took care of her. She would tell me stories about her life, WWII, and her family. One day she confessed that her son is not really her son and actually is her nephew. She couldn’t have kids and her sister gave him away to her. She said he doesn’t know and should never know. Felt weird to know this.
Image source: Ila Na, Ron Lach
Losing your loved ones is already one of the worst things that can ever happen to you in life. But learning that they might not have been the people you thought you knew can be even more devastating. Not only are you dealing with grief, but now you also have to come to terms with this new information. Even though the person has passed away, if they’ve spilled some sensitive secrets in their final moments, they fundamentally changed your relationship with them.
While we all keep secrets, some of them are more devastating than others. And there is a big difference between secrecy and privacy. A good rule of thumb to follow is that if a piece of information directly impacts another person, you should tell them. Meanwhile, if you feel ashamed or guilty about withholding some information from your loved ones, it might be a sign that you’re being secretive rather than simply private.
#4
My uncle had been in a car accident. It was bad. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, he said “tell my wife that Wendy is my daughter and I love her” (name changed for privacy). He died a few minutes later because of internal bleeding.
Wendy was the neighbours’ then 5 year old child. That caused a huge s**tstorm, I can tell you.
Image source: MartijnCvB, engin akyurt
#5
My dad was adopted from a woman who went to my grandparent’s church and got pregnant out of wedlock. My grandpa confessed on his deathbed that he had actually had an affair with that woman and he was my dad’s real father, which was why he suggested adopting him in the first place.
Image source: tay-lorde, Tim Doerfler
#6
One of my residents admitted to running over 2 kids with her car. One died. She said that these kids on bikes were in the street. She blew the horn and they would not move. She then said that she just ran over them. She said she was never caught. At first we didn’t believe her, but she repeated this story word for word each time she told it. We believed her and she died a few days later. She had been a mean woman when she was younger and was very cantankerous in her old age. We all really liked her though. It was a shame she had to take that secret to her grave.
Image source: Yasahme AL-Satiif, Briana Tozour
As Michael Slepian, PhD, the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. associate professor of leadership and ethics at Columbia Business School, told the American Psychological Association, people have around 13 secrets at any one time. It’s estimated that around 5 of those are things that they have never told others.
According to Slepian, some of the most common secrets that people keep include having told lies and not wanting others to find out. Other common secrets include romantic desires and things related to intimacy and money.
#7
My grandmother on my father’s side told me that she had two other children that had died before my father and his sister were born. After she passed when my father and aunt asked me what her big secret was, I told them that she had two other children that died before they were born. Turns out that they already knew about it but didn’t say anything because they didn’t want to trigger her. Turns out that they died in a house fire when they were toddlers. My grandmother always felt guilty but my father was a police officer and he said that the fire wasn’t my grandmother’s fault, this was at the time that wiring was going from knob and two to continuous.
Image source: Kenneth Ferrari, RDNE Stock project
#8
One guy was in after a heart attack. He thought for sure he was going to die in the next few days. He wanted one of our security officers to come talk to him. When the officer arrived the patient wanted me to stay in the room as a witness. Seems about 10 years back (about 25 now) he k**led a guy and buried him. Our officer had the police come to see the patient who then repeated what told us before. Told them how he ki**ed him and where he was buried. That patient survived to stand trial. Second patient was a female in after a bad car accident that was dying. She confessed to her husband while I was in the room that she had been having an affair with two other guys- one was his brother.
Image source: Mike Hughes, Jonathan Borba
#9
I was working in a nursing home some years ago, and we had the nicest gentleman there. I mean he was the best patient we or any nurse could ask for. So, after get pneumonia and declining he had only days to live, he asked me if he could tell me something that he never told anyone. Of course I agreed and was happy to hear whatever he had to say. Well he proceeded to tell me that his grandfather s**ually a**sed his little sister and his grandmother knew about it and protected his grandfather, so he put poison in their food when they had to stay there for the night. The next morning they both were dead. No autopsy was performed and everyone assumed they had passed from old age. He smiled at me and said, “It was my job to protect her.” I just simply smiled and told him he was now my favorite person, moments later he passed on. I will never forget him.
Image source: Lynda Parisi, cottonbro studio
The psychologist notes that keeping secrets from others indicates that you may not be comfortable enough to be yourself around others. Overall, it’s healthier to feel guilty (for example, thinking that you’ve done something bad) than ashamed (believing that you’re a bad person). It’s in the latter case that your secrecy starts taking a toll on your well-being and health because you keep returning to your secrets over and over again.
If you feel burdened by the secrets you keep from your loved ones, you might want to consider talking to a neutral third party. Ask them for advice. Get their perspective. Step outside of your rumination.
#10
My parents went through a very bitter divorce. Admittedly my mother lied about several things which led the courts to awarding her half of my fathers assets plus alimony.
The day he died he told me he wished he’d never met my mother. His said she was the biggest regret of his life.
The only solace was him telling me that he never once regretted having me as his son.
He was a man of integrity and honor. My mother used him for his wealth.
His estate was divided between me and my sister. My mother tried to sue the estate demanding that she was entitled to ongoing alimony. She didn’t succeed. We have not spoken to her in 15 years. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead. I’ve never been happier to have her out of our lives forever.
Image source: Doug Martin, cottonbro studio
#11
When I was a teenager I helped an older lady with painting and the like in her home.
Decades later one of her sons passed away.
Before dying he revealed that his Mother had k**led his brother decades before and buried him in the garden under the roses.
So I had been cleaning up after a m**der…
The son who revealed this was Sean Mayes.
Image source: Chris Lockwood, Ron Lach
#12
I’m not a nurse, but the most famous deathbed confession I’ve heard was probably 20 years ago or so. The Dr. That took the still famous photo of the Loch Ness Monster admitted decades later that it was a fake. He attached a toy dinosaur to a toy submarine. This pic is still used in stories about “Nessie” even though it’s a known fake.
Image source: Joseph Fulginiti, M. A. Wetherell
What is the most shocking secret that you have ever heard a loved one, friend, coworker, or acquaintance tell you? Have you ever heard someone’s last-breath confession, as they were passing away?
How many secrets would you say that you’re keeping from your nearest and dearest? If you feel like sharing, feel free to do so in the comments at the bottom of this post.
#13
A husband and wife – the wife had died some years prior, but the husband confessed that he and his wife ran a swinger’s club for married couples to come to parties and swap their spouses for that of another, and they had conscripted prostitutes from the local area, male and female. pretending to be another married couple – to spice things up – and confessed that a number of these were under-age, and at least two females were sophomores in high school. He also confessed to ki**ing one of them but offered no reason.
Image source: Joshua Light, cottonbro studio
#14
A man who ran a day-care and had allowed m**esters onto his staff – who paid him for access to the children, and over thirty of the boys age 2 and 3 had been a**aulted repeatedly over the course of ten years. Nobody ever knew and the kids’ memories were not developed enough to recall even under hypnosis.
Image source: Joshua Light, Ketut Subiyanto
#15
I’m a medical student and I had a female patient who was new to our practice who was HIV positive. I needed to ask her how she got the virus. She tells me it was s*xually transmitted, and the only reason she got tested was because her partner of 3 years last words to her as he was dying in hospice was “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I wanted to tell you; forgive me.” Heavy stuff.
Edit: to be clear he died of cancer.
Image source: Pleasebeunique27, Karola G
#16
I met a lady on a train to Edinburgh who was really nervous because she was on the way to meet her brother for the first time in 70 years. Her parents had told her that he died when he was one, but they’d given him away because they couldn’t afford so many kids. She didn’t find out he was still alive until her Mother confessed it on her deathbed.
Image source: ignoramusaurus, Ayelt van Veen
#17
My grandpa, a Sicilian man with blessed cooking skills, told us on his deathbed that his meatballs were actually frozen meatballs from the grocery store.
Image source: orangestar17, TIVASEE
#18
I didn’t see it, but my aunt watched her elderly mother fall down the stairs and confess just before she died that she wasn’t her biological mother.
She told my aunt that her oldest sister was actually her mother. The sister had gotten pregnant too young and the mom said it was hers. A common way of handling it back then. She revealed it in her very last breath.
Image source: usf_edd, MART PRODUCTION
#19
From 1976 to 1982 I worked my way through NYU part-time as an EMT for FDNY Ladder 20 in southeastern Manhattan. I remember going on one call one winter, about 2–3 AM, where an older European man in his late 70s was dying of COPD and heart failure.
He lived alone with one cat, which hadn’t been fed in awhile, and when we arrived, he was almost unresponsive, with weak pulse and shallow respiration. We attended him, took his vitals and started to strap him in to the gurney. There was a Catholic crucifix on one wall and some old pictures of German castles, street scenes and cross country skiing parties. The man had a soft and vague, mostly discarded accent, which might have been German, Austrian, Swiss or possibly Hungarian.
He told my partner he knew his time was coming and he wanted to die at home, and in order to delay us he told my partner to look into a corner closet and take out a brass and leather trunk. In it there were 4 magnificent German hand carved boar and stag horn hunting knives with ornate, deeply etched blades of finest Prussian steel, plus some medals, including an Iron Cross, rings and papers. He told us we could have the contents and he told us his name was Dietrich, and he had risen to the rank of Standartenfuhrer (Colonel) in the SS.
He told us, through hypoxic, rattling gasps, that in 1942 he ordered and supervised the death of over 4,000 civilians, mainly women and children, somewhere in Hungary. He said he never was charged with war crimes and escaped the Nuremburg war crimes trials because the Hungarian army, acting under SS auspices, directly participated and was responsible, and their were no witness or paperwork to tie his orders directly to the SS. He told it without emotion, without deception, as if he was telling you where he had parked his car. He had kept that secret for 40 years and needed to release it, like a confessional, before he died. We got him into the ambulance, but he was DOA by the time we got to the ER at Beth Israel.
My partner and I each grabbed one of the hunting knives. I was struck by how easily it was to talk about and confess the most horrible deeds to a perfect stranger once he knew there would be no repercussions. Makes me realize we are all just a hair’s breadth away from being monsters.
Image source: Steve Fortuna, Malcolm Broström
#20
There was a cold case murder in our hometown back from the 50s. No suspects. Never solved. It was my aunts husband who a**sed her.
On my oldest uncle’s death bed he confesses to k**ling him for a**sing his sister.
Image source: Dee, Curated Lifestyle
#21
I was a medic in Vietnam and a badly wounded guy was brought into the ER via medevac. He knew that he was going to die and asked if he was going to hell for k**ling people that were civilians. He started to give me details but the morphine put him out. He died peacefully maybe 5 minutes later.
Image source: Lee Weidner, Getty Images
#22
My friends mom confessed to us two days b4 she died that she had k**led my friends dad many years prior with poison. she claimed that she found out he was m**esting their neighbor who was a disabled kid and she fed him rat poison. Everyone thought he had just got sick and died. We said yea but he was in the hospital for a month b4 he died, and she replied, “that’s why I told him not to eat that horrible hospital food and that I would bring him food.”
Image source: Vanessa Ingrid, Evin Ershock
#23
A woman who ran a local outlet shop confessed to human tr**ficking and had built-up quite a nest-egg for her and her husband. When the husband learned of this. He gave the money to charity after her death.
Image source: Joshua Light, cottonbro studio
#24
My grandpa told my dad he loved him for the first time when he was dying from cancer. Grandpa was a drunk all throughout my dad’s childhood and had a strained relationship with the family. So this was pretty surprising to hear from him.
Image source: dhbobers, Curated Lifestyle
#25
Me and all of my cousins were gathered around my grandfathers hospice bed as he laid dying. Each and every one of my cousins (there’s a lot of us) gave him a kiss and tried to talk to him/said they loved him, etc. But he wouldn’t respond to any of them, just stared.
Until I came up. I sat on the edge of his bed, holding his hand. Everyone was watching us. He looked at me and said, “I don’t like Mexican food.”
And that was it.
Image source: momocazzo, Ketut Subiyanto
#26
My grandfather admitted to me and only me that he “accidentally” [slept] with a man.
Image source: Aggravating_Fish_169, Ekaterina Belinskaya
#27
I have an amazing one:
My great grandmother lived a very long and interesting life. She was in her 20s in the great depression. She had a wild streak from those days that we don’t know much about, to the point that we actually don’t know our great grandfather’s name. Just the husband she took later.
Over the course of her nearly 100 year life, she had collected owls. Literally thousands of owl figurines. She had clocks, wall-hangings, potholders, lamps, stained glass art, salt shakers, and more little figurines than you could imagine, all depicting owls.
We all wondered the importance of the owls. She never talked about them, we just all knew she loved owls.
Well, when she was nearing death, at the age of 98 or 99, and the docs said she had days, my grandparents went and talked to her and they asked her if she had anything she wanted to share or ask before she goes.
She thought for a moment, then said, “I never understood the owls.”
It turns out, she didn’t really give a s**t about owls. Near as we could piece together sometime in the 40s or 50s perhaps, she bought either a trivet or a set of salt/pepper shakers that were owls. Then someone got her the other. Those were the oldest owls anyone could remember. But from there, someone got her an owl to match, probably a potholder or place mat. And all the sudden her kitchen was owl themed. From there, it snowballed. The owls flowed like wine, baffling her for 60 years, eventually taking over as the bulk of her personal belongings.
The moral is: if you’re not actually into something, mention it early.
Image source: Fearlessleader85, William Warby
#28
My husbands aunt (Mexican family) confessed to him on her death bed that she spiced her tacos with Kroger brand taco seasoning. He’s still a little shocked about it sometimes.
Image source: missladyface, Amy Farías
#29
Not a nurse and not my story, but my cousin’s story. His own father confessed to him on his deathbed that he had worked for the mafia and had [unalived] 3 people. This was alarming to the family, to say the least. His mother was my aunt. He turned out ok and did not work for the mafia. He wasn’t rich enough. But as a child, he likely benefited, unknowingly.
Image source: Glem, cottonbro studio
#30
My dad, who was a B-17 pilot in World War II, looked at me, his eyes in tears, and said that the biggest thing in life he regretted was flying b**bing missions that may have ki**ed innocent people. He had held that in since the war. He died at 91 years old a few days later.
Image source: Michelle S., Mike LaChance
#31
In my time as a registered nurse I’ve heard many deathbed confessions. The most lighthearted one was from a lady dying from cancer. Her confession was that she’d once stolen a tin of butter from the store and she asked me if God would forgive her. I told her what I tell everyone, yeah he will forgive you for sure. I don’t believe in God but if I can make their death any easier for them then I will. Saying things like that gives the patients peace of mind.
Image source: Angelica Blake, Getty Images
#32
An older man, a white immigrant to the UK, who had difficult psychiatry. It emerged he had been a t**turer, I think likely an executioner, in a civil war many years ago.
Image source: Giles Elrington, Curated Lifestyle
#33
My mom’s mom (my Nana) wasn’t on her deathbed but she wasn’t feeling well at all and we were visiting her for a little bit; I think it was shortly before she went into the nursing home where she spent the last few years of her life. Anyway, I was talking to her a little bit, and she said that before she met my Papa, she had been married as a teenager to a different man when she lived in Ireland. I didn’t know what to make of it and I didn’t get to ask her any more about it before we left, so I just kept it to myself, especially since I wasn’t sure if it was really true, but also because I wasn’t sure if I should tell my mom or not.
A few years ago I was visiting my parents when my dad showed me that he had come across Nana and Papa’s marriage certificate, that had her maiden name listed as something different. I told him that she had said something to me about it once before but I didn’t know what to do with that information so hadn’t said anything. It was interesting to find out that what she had told me was true,
Image source: Tara Glaese
#34
In Texas, a man confessed to having robbed a town’s bank. He shot and k**led the bank guard in the process. 40+ years had passed.
Image source: Joshua Light
#35
In Texas, a man confessed to having brokered high-end dr*gs to his friends and family, and put himself through college on the proceeds. He also had a nice home, cars, a family, and quit the dr*g trade to make an honest living. He confessed to ki**ing and burying five of his competitors over the years, the least recent over 30 years ago, and the most recent over 20 years ago.
Image source: Joshua Light
#36
The American Judge at The Nuremberg Trials confessed to his wife on his deathbed that he had sent many innocent men to their deaths as, he had been given a list prior to the Trials of what the judgements should be.
Image source: James Taylor
#37
I’m not a nurse, but my grandpa’s war buddies have some very funny, strange and terrifying stories. One gentleman told this experience. “His grandpa was a handyman doing all sorts of odd jobs for money during the depression. Home repair, horse shoeing, fence repair, just any job he could get. He had a smoke house he turned into a tool shed to store his growing tool collection. After a job he came home to find his tool shed opened and cleared out, all of his tools were gone. He eventually discovered that a nearby farmer had one room shacks he would rent out to passers-by for a dollar a month. People going to the next town, helping to harvest crops for board, or just needing a place out of the rain. With more questions and inquiries he narrowed his search to one particular shack. At 2 am on a moonlit night grandpa walked through the woods and knocked on the door of that shack. A younger man opened the door and grandpa asked him for his help with something. Getting him away from the shack out into the woods this is what happened. Pointing a gun at the young man, he told him to understand that he was going to die. Nothing he could say or do was going to prevent this, cry and beg all you want. Now when he opened the door of the shack grandpa saw a young lady with two kids asleep in the bed. If the young man was honest and told grandpa the truth, this would end with him. But if he decided to be a coward and lie grandpa would come back. The horrifying part of this story is that as a 9 year old kid I had to hold the flashlight for grandpa as he walked through the woods. Grandpa was able to recover enough of his stolen items that he didn’t return to the shack…but I still remember the sound of that single gunshot.”
Image source: Jem Key
#38
I worked as a hospice nurse for many years. I heard about m**ders, s**ual a**aults, abandoned families and thefts. They needed to reconcile something before they left. I listened and offered kindness. I keep their secrets.
Image source: Julie Washburn
#39
A couple of days before my grandmother passed away she was really confused and was talking about my mother having a child a year or so after my own birth that was sent for adoption. She was talking about how sad and horrible this was and that I deserved to know. After my grandmother passed I confronted my mom about it and she neglected this, and I truly believed her. Couple of months later it turns out my grandmother was the one adopting away a baby girl who was born between my mother and aunt.
Image source: Thornbeach
#40
My father, in his death bed, told me it was us the rest of the family who ki**ed him. And I’m not denying this.
Biologically, it was myasthenia gravis that took him away. Mentally, it was the broken family relationship.
Image source: Clockscene Chou
#41
One was a young man who told me that while driving he felt the urge to ram other drivers who had annoyed him. I think he had not always resisted the urge.
Image source: Giles Elrington
#42
I was in hospice, caring for an older woman who seemed to be really suffering.
I was struck by how often she called for pain medicine. What we give there isn’t the weak stuff. I’m ‘narcotic naive’ (meaning no built-up tolerance to narcotics), and I thought to myself “wow…if I took this much in the course of my shift, I don’t know if I’d be breathing by the end of it.”
The fourth time she was my patient for the night, I was taking in another dose of morphine — and out of nowhere I was impulsively struck to ask her a question.
Have you forgiven everyone?
That sprang out before I could even consider it.
She stopped everything. In the silence that fell on us, she looked me square in the eye — and with a drawn-out reply coupled with a slow back and forth of her head, she said
Ohhh … that’s hard.
I stayed in her room a lot that night. She related a long, complex story about the grief and torment her ex son-in-law had delivered to their family, and to her in particular.
He had been out of her life picture for better than a decade and a half, but the bitterness was well and deeply rooted. She got out all the details. She said, “I can never forgive him.’
We had a long talk about forgiveness, what it is, what it’s not, and why it was so very, very important.
I was back a couple of days later, and noticed she hadn’t asked for any pain medicine. As soon as I could, I stopped by her room, walked in and said,
“You forgave that man, didn’t you…?”
She replied, “Yes, yes I did.”
That shift, she slept so well, and looked so … peaceful and eighteen tons lighter. I was so happy for her. I was off the next few days.
When I got back, she wasn’t there.
Confession done. A round of forgiveness bought for the whole house. Lightened up, it was time to fly.
Image source: Steven Bobulsky
#43
My hospice patient admitted r**ing his daughter. The daughter told her Mom when it happened, but the father kept up denials for 20 years. This young woman had grown to adulthood with her family believing she was a liar. On his deathbed the truth came out. I just thought it was sad, what a shame lives were changed in a bad way.
Image source: Mary Brown
#44
I’m not a nurse but on my granny’s death bed she looked at each of us clearly while holding our hand and told us assuredly – “I know who k**led him”. With tears in her eyes as it seemed she was going to answer – “who k**led who”, she died.
No idea. As far as we know there were no “unsolved” death or m**ders in her circle. Maybe someone got away with the something it or it was not known it was a mystery!
Image source: Bill Coffey, Curated Lifestyle
#45
I was told the following story by a friend. His pastor told him the following. An elderly member of their church had just been told by her doctors that she only had about two more weeks to live. Her pastor visited her to offer prayers and comfort. During this meeting he asked her about her life and if she had any regrets. The lady told him that before she died she wished she could have one more good sc**wing.
Image source: Steve Cox, Ron Lach
#46
My mom told me about the death of her father, my grandfather, and his last words to her. She said he was on his deathbed and it was obvious he was nearing the end. He motioned her over to tell her something. She went over, leaned in close, expecting some declaration of his love for her or some deeply insightful. He said “The good family silverware is hidden in the ventilation system about 15 feet out from the furnace.” She looked at him like he was crazy. He said “What!! We travel a lot and that’s where I hid it. That stuff is expensive!” He died the next morning.
Image source: picksandchooses, Debby Hudson
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