by As life draws to a close, many people feel compelled to unburden themselves of secrets they’ve carried for years—sometimes even a lifetime. These deathbed confessions often reveal shocking truths, hidden betrayals, or long-buried regrets, leaving those who hear them haunted forever.
U/Eurymedion: “One of my uncles confessed to having two other children with another woman. He thought he was going to die from COVID and I guess he felt he needed to come clean. He didn’t die. That was back in 2020 and there’s still a ridiculous amount of drama happening over potential inheritances and whatnot.
EDIT: Yes, it absolutely is hysterical he got a second chance to live after admitting to having a second family. No, my uncle is not a bad person as far as I know. We never interacted much because his English is bad and my Mandarin is atrocious.”
Borrowed Identity
U/Mazon_Del: “My great-great uncle admitted on his deathbed that he wasn’t actually related to our family, he’d spent the last 40 years in the US using one of our distant relatives citizenship papers since they looked close enough and in the 1920’s that was really all you needed.
He didn’t kill the real uncle or anything, the guy had just decided America wasn’t for him and went home. This dude was like ‘Hey, since you aren’t wanting to go back, can I have your papers?’ and that was that. Not haunting at all, but my family doesn’t have very many death bed confessions, so it’s still technically the most haunting.”
Forgotten Truths
U/WatchingInSilence: “My grandmother confessed to me that I’m adopted. What haunts me is that her dementia was so bad that she legitimately believed I didn’t know. For context, I’m Korean, my sister’s Mexican, and our parents are white.
I spent the last few hours with her letting her act as if she were breaking it to me gently and promising I wouldn’t be upset with my parents for not telling me (even though they had and it was kinda hard to miss).”
Switched Babies
U/odoyle321: “My wife is a CNA in a nursing home. She had a resident who was formally a delivery (OB) nurse in the 70s and 80s. When she was on her last few breaths, my wife was leaning in to her face to clean it, and she whispered in my wife’s ear, ‘When I was a nurse, I switched babies around’
I’m not sure what’s worse, knowing that one child may not be your child, or that this woman could have done it MANY times.”
Stolen Name
U/waylandsmith: “A family friend that I knew when I was a child confessed as he was dying that he had used an assumed identity of a dead friend for his entire adult life. He was a Jewish child in Germany and there was a program in the UK to accept 10k Jewish refugee children from Europe. He was slightly over the age to qualify, but a younger friend of his was murdered by the Nazis and he took the opportunity to steal the identity of this other boy.
He escaped to the UK and eventually moved to North America, started a family and lived out his life. He never told anyone, including his wife who passed away long before he did, because he was afraid he would be deported back to Germany, even many decades later. As he was dying he finally told his children.”
The Watchful Silence
U/CuriousKangaroo845: “Not really this but my mom was raised in KY where all the miners and coal operators were in conflict in the 1930s and on and she told about some older man who had worked for the coal company and had presumably done some bad stuff on their behalf.
Car bombs, shootings, I don’t know. As he lay dying in the hospital years later the coal co. had someone sit in his room 24 hours to be sure he did not do any deathbed confessions. Creepy as h— I always thought.”
Hidden Fortune
U/ScRibbl3_5: “Not death bed confession but kindve related. My grandfather (dads- dad) buried hundreds of thousands of dollars in our family home (that I grew up in). My mother told me we would never find it – ever. She said my grandfather told her we could pull the house apart brick by brick and we would never find it.
My grandfather was a part of the Italian mafia – so this was something that wasn’t too far off from believing. I am waiting to buy back our family home so I can tear it apart brick by brick lol”
Unspoken Apology
U/ACluelessMan: “One of my great uncles, someone I barely knew. I could count on one hand how many times we actually crossed paths. But on his deathbed, he asked for me. The only thing he said to me was that he was sorry. I won’t pretend that his death hit me hard, but those words have stuck with me over the years. Why would he apologize to a 13-year-old who was practically a stranger?
My mom says he was likely sorry for not being there for me, but I don’t know why he’d feel that way. No one ever expected him to make time for his great nephew. The few times we did meet, he was distant but kind, just like a stereotypical elderly man would be.. it’s not as dramatic as some other people’s stories, but even now, in my twenties, I still think about it sometimes.”
Confused Confessions
U/BabyHeavy5549: “NOT MY STORY. My grandfather had pretty terrible dementia and he kept making deathbed confessions as he knew he didn’t have much time left. They were often about witnessing a murder and not telling anyone, but each time he confessed to us the details changed. It happened a couple of times a day over the course of his final week.
We finally figured out that he would watch the local news and hear about these things happening then would think he had actually witnessed them.”
Two Families
U/actstunt: “My grand grand father, had apparently two families but what made this super creepy was the fact that my cousin got the news on grandpa’s deathbed after he requested seeing his older son (my uncle) which wasn’t in the country,
so my cousin had to pass as my uncle and that’s when grandpa told him the news, I remember watching my cousin getting out frozen, crying in shock, it was a pretty powerful scene to watch.”
Silent Justice
Burdened Secret
U/ucnts33m3: “It was not me, but my former boss told me that when his father was on his deathbed, he told my boss that he had been unfaithful for the majority of his marriage. This came as a surprise to my boss.
Radiator Riches
U/Dependable_Pirate: “I had a client one time that told me the story of his father. On his death bed, between breaths he kept saying something about a radiator. Everyone assumed it was due to his state of mind or that he was complaining about the heat. About a year later, his wife and children were cleaning out her home as she was downsizing after his passing.
They had a lot of things and underneath everything, in the garage, was an old radiator. They were about to throw it out until the son put it together. They cracked it open and found over $100,000. Came that close to throwing away the money. Not haunting, but still always found it to be a wild story.”
No Cremation
U/sparkle___motion: “not a confession, but I remember some lady telling a story where her elderly friend had a clinical death for a few minutes, then was brought back to life by EMTs.
Predicted Passing
U/sluttypidge: “Had a like 85 year old patient (who was in for uti but DNR/DNI) shortly after his family went down to the cafeteria to grab dinner, say, ‘Thank God they left now I can die in peace.’ I told him I was still there, so why would he die on me?
Hidden Bodies
U/scorpiomooon: “I worked in a nursing home that took all kinds of people. S– offenders, murderers, dementia—you name it, and we probably had it at some point. One guy in particular had dementia. He also was believed to be involved in a murder.
However, because he was crazy, he couldn’t remember the details from the murder. He was also the sweetest little old man, and no one believed he killed anyone. (Myself included.) Before he died, he told us where the bodies were.”
Final Rejection
U/LostDogBoulderUtah: “After my grandpa had a stroke, he couldn’t talk and struggled to move his dominant hand. He spent almost ten minutes laboriously scratching out a message for me on a notepad. It was ‘I love you. I’m proud of you.’ And then slow desperate attempts to hug me. My sister took great pains to travel to see him, and he spent similar effort to say ‘go away.’
At 14 I screamed at him to be a better person. After that, our only interactions were me showing up to act as a buffer for my sister. To keep her safe. And during his stroke, his recovery, and the following real death bed confessions… he was adamant he was proud of me. And ignored my sister. I still don’t get it.”
Unanswered Cry
U/Faust723: “‘Where’s [my name]?’ I was in the other room. Crying myself to sleep because I was too much of a coward to see my grandmother, the woman who raised me, in the state that chemo left her.
My dad and I were watching movies that night when we heard her sobbing and he went to check on her. I couldn’t bring myself to get up and go comfort her. She was gone when I woke up the next morning. Something I’ll never forgive myself for.”
Defying Fate
U/Ranch_Dressing321: “My grandpa died at the age of 94 and he died 10 years after my grandma died. Everyone in our family thought that he was going to reach the age of 100 years old or more since he was quite ‘strong’ even for his old age and he didn’t have an ounce of sickness or disease at all.
