Last Words

I'm spinning this out of the How I Met Your Mother thread. Much of last night's episode focused on the last words a loved one ever said to you before they died.

I have had my last conversation with my father stuck in my head since watching it. Cancer had been eating him up for months and the doctors told us it was terminal the day they found it, so we knew it was coming. I had just returned home after spending a few days with him.

My mother (they had been divorced for years) called me at work to tell me that if I wanted to speak with him, I needed to call my brother's phone immediately. He wasn't going to make it through the night. He was gasping for air and I really couldn't understand most of what he said other than "I love you" and my name, which he just kept repeating. Finally my brother took the phone back from him. He died about an hour later.

It just has me wondering if any of you has a memorable story. Hopefully, some better ones than mine.

 

I've never lost a loved one, though obviously it will happen some day, but, as someone with children myself, your story is beyond powerful. I cannot imagine leaving them behind some day.

 

The significant deaths I've had to deal with during my life are a grandmother, a grandfather and a cousin. The last words I said to all three were "I love you." and I've always been able to feel pretty good about that.

My dad's father, on the other hand, was an asshole until he got Alzheimers and then he turned into a cross between Mr. Magoo and R. Lee Ermey. I think I said something like "Well, see you later..." and as my cousin and I walked out of his room, he said he told him that hell was hot.

I don't think he was joking...

 

The last time I saw my grandmother, she was in the hospital after suffering a heart attack. She'd been there a couple of weeks and then she improved enough to get out of ICU.

They were in the middle of transferring her to another ward when my mom and I came to visit. I had a nasty cold, and at first, no one didn't want me to see my grandmother for fear of her catching my cold. Finally, my mom, other relatives and the doctors agreed that I could see her if I wore one of those doctor's masks. They warned me, though, not to kiss her, even if she insisted.

So I go in to see her, she chuckles at me wearing the mask, we visit for a minute, then they tell me to leave. She wants me to give her a kiss on the cheek. I tell her I can't. She points to her cheek, and insisted, so I did. No one said anything.

She improved slightly, so the hospital discharged her. But she was only home a couple of days before having a second heart attack and died. To this day, I've always been glad I got to kiss her goodbye.

 

I've read somewhere that, for pleasant memories, it's often a good idea to write them down. Writing them down can be a pleasurable exercise in and of itself, and a written memory facilitates happier reminiscing down the line. In that same article, it was argued that writing down unpleasant memories is not a good idea, for obvious reasons; inexactitude works wonders when pain is involved.

My father died on New Year's Day eight years ago after a relatively short but brutal race with cancer. His last words to me were non-sensical and, hours later, I stood at the foot of the bed as the end came. I know I did the "right" thing by being there with him, but I must admit there are days when I wonder whether the guilt of not being there might have been a better parting gift.

 

Breast cancer ate away at my mother, paralyzing her and playing with her brain. It was awful.

The last full sentence she said to me was, "Well, that sucks."

She had asked me why so many people were coming to see her.

 

My dad went into a coma a few hours after my mom and I visited him. I know that my last words to him were "Good night, Dad" and I think his last to me were "Good night, sweetheart." I'm not 100% sure, but I think so. He'd had a stroke and was having some dementia episides where he'd just fly into a rage (he was restrained for the last few conscious days of my life, which breaks my heart). I left before my mother did and all she said to me that night (before we knew it would be the last time we talked to him) was that he wasn't nice to her. I've never asked her exactly what he said but it makes me very sad to know it was probably something awful, especially considering that's not how he was at all. His last words ever were probably spoken to a nurse or a doctor and I'll never know what those were.

(Thanks OOP for making me cry. )

 

The last words my father ever said to me: "Thank you."

 

I don't remember the last words my grandmother said to me, but I do remember the last time I saw her before she died.
My cousin from Connecticut came up with my uncle and I decided to cut a visit to my buddy's campus short and see them on Sunday. I got there and spent some time, but I remember hugging my cousin as my grandmother watched. Two days later I got a call from my unlce saying she had died.
My cousin and I were the oldest children of her respective children; my mother said it was fitting that she got to see us together one last time.

 

When my dad passed, he was too far gone by the time I got to the hospital to have any conversation. He wasn't one to talk on the phone, either, so my last memory of him is the summer before at my sister's wedding. Me, him, my mother and my other sister sat around in the reception hall for a couple hours after everyone else had left, just laughing and telling old stories. I knew he was a little sick, and that it might be the last time I really spent time with him, so I made sure to enjoy it. Glad I did.

 

My Mom was battling cancer and went downhill in a hurry in her final week, which began with her asking me if I wanted to talk to her cats. Since my nephew was over, I just figured she was being silly for his sake. No, not so much. She got worse and worse but we all kind of had deluded ourselves into thinking this wasn't The End. She was unresponsive to anyone.

Finally we took her to the hospital for a brain scan, fearing the cancer had spread there, on a Friday. As we were waiting for the results, she has some kind of blood transfusion and vomited violently at the end of it. My sister pulled me into a bathroom, started bawling and says "I think this is it, we can't take care of her anymore at home." She was admitted and even then I figured, OK, she probably won't come home, but this isn't IT.

Next morning, my sister calls me to tell me to bring my Mom's liquid food to the hospital. Then a few minutes later, she calls back and yells "FORGET THE FOOD JUST GET HERE NOW!" I get down there and the family priest is there. That's odd I think. Then he pulls out his Bible and starts giving Mom last rites. You've got to be fucking shitting me, I think.

She was hooked up to all sorts of machines and on all sorts of painkillers and completely out of it, kept alive just long enough so my aunt (Mom's sister) and my wife could get up and say goodbye. So I said what I said, and promised to name my children after her if I ever have children, and I know I told her she was our hero for how she raised us and how she so valiantly battled this shit diagnosis (I'm paraphrasing there) and how much I love her. They--whomever "they" are--say people in that condition can hear what is being said, so I try to take some comfort in that. And I also know she knows how I felt about her. We were always very close and we always ended every conversation with "I love you."

But I have no idea what her final words were to me, and while I know she knows how I felt about her, I will always have a pang of regret that I followed in the footsteps of my Dad and sister--who refused to even discuss, with anyone, the reality that she was dying--and didn't tell her a couple weeks earlier, when she would have been lucid enough to understand.

 

i haven't had a real conversation with my dad since he had a massive stroke about 20 months ago. but since we brought him home from a nursing home last may i've gotten to "talk" to him a lot more than his other kids who haven't been there every day. i lift him in and out of bed and a wheelchair and get his meals for him - and even kind of play dominos on occasion - but a conversation ain't happening as all he does is speak gibberish. it can sometimes be a pain and a burden but i know he appreciates my efforts and at least i know there won't be any guilt from me when he dies like i'm expecting my bros and sis to feel.