I believed that things like this only happened in the movies!

Was I wrong…because these confessions were really eye-opening.

I guess some people just want to spill their guts and come clean before they leave this life, which makes perfect sense…

Have you ever heard a confession from someone before they passed away?

Here’s what AskReddit users had to say.

1. That’s intense.

“My step father emailed me the night he passed away.

In general, he was always in pain from chemo, cancer, meds and whatnot. He did not want to continue spending money as he wasted away.

He asked me to never tell the rest of the family: “but I’m taking all my sleeping pills tonight after your Mom goes to bed. With luck, she’ll never know the truth. It would break her.””

2. The stash.

“I didn’t witness this personally as it was between my grandfather and his father.

My great grandfather was not a nice man. He beat his children (one time he beat his daughter with a table leg) and I am assuming did the same to his wife.

Anyway, she left him and the kids behind (this was the 30s and I am assuming that he didn’t allow her to take the kids with her and its not like women’s rights were great back then) my grandfather left home at 8 years old and fended for himself for his entire life.

On his d**th bed nasty grandpa told the boys that he had a bunch of money stashed on the old property and if they went to see him, he would tell them where it was.

No one went.”

3. Missing his friend.

“In a hospice.

This man was an al**holic, this isn’t usually a problem because when in hospice you can get whatever you want as long as it is legal, but he was a violent drunk and was forbidden alcohol as a result.

Anyways between his requests for alcohol, he talked about how he and a friend got into a massive fight about land and his equipment being borrowed, as a result they haven’t spoken in 20 years.

He said he didnt even know why it was such a big deal and regretted being that aggressive. Basically said he missed his best friend and wished they didn’t lose all those years.”

4. Scary.

“My grandfather who had not been a religious man throughout his life stated on the second to last day he was alive that in the prior few nights he was seeing beings in the bedroom with him.

He could not discern what they were but one in particular made him very fearful.”

5. No one knew.

“My great uncle confessed to having two illegitimate sons right before he kicked the bucket in front of his own children and grandchildren.

The crazy thing was that none of his children knew this. Not even my great aunt knew about it because she would have made a huge fuss if she was alive at that time and knew about it.

What was crazier was that these two sons already passed away five and seven years ahead of him respectively. He was 98 years old and his “invisible” sons were 65 and 69 years old.

The children found out that one of his invisible sons actually was a teacher at a school that his grand daughters attended when they were in high school.

Nevertheless, his children decided to reach out to the children of his invisible sons. They got connected and learned more stuff about my grand uncle.

The craziest thing was that I actually dated one of the granddaughters of one of the invisible sons (the one passed away at the aged of 69 years old).

Talking about a few degrees of separation.”

6. Great aunt.

“My great aunt passed away a couple of years ago.

She was suffering from viral encephalitis and fluctuated in and out of consciousness. It was truly painful to watch. Although a lot of family tended to be around her in those last days, I once happened to be alone with her when she made some fairly odd remarks (which I kept to myself since).

On the day in question I was playing games on my phone in her hospital room when she started to audibly mutter to herself. It became more urgent and intense – eventually she explicitly called me to her side. Her eyes looked huge and confused, I doubt she knew who I was. She spat out her words, most of which were barely comprehensible, putting particular emphasis on ‘boy’ and ‘ingredient’.

I sat there for 15 minutes, listening to her erratic account of, as I finally gathered, how she sometimes used to cook eggs in the urine of a stable boy (instead of water). She insisted that he was handsomely compensated for his services, but now and then she started to cry and couldn’t stop.

I googled this weeks later, and there indeed exists a traditional ‘dish’ in China described in the West as Virgin boy egg. Apparently this concept had fascinated her and she frequently recreated this herself and served it to her family (which sometimes included my younger self) without explaining what it was.

I am not sure if she felt shame or enthusiasm about this (she often stammered something about ‘the secret ingredient’), but it quite obviously haunted her towards the very end of her life.”

7. Revelation.

“My maternal great-grandmother told me in response to me telling her thanks for being my great-grandma “I’m so sorry”.

She responded that way because when I was born, it was out of wedlock. So, I think while she was civil towards me, she harbored not so good feelings for me (if that makes sense?).

I accepted her apology and in a way, probably made her spirit happy because I named one of my children after her. Not too shocking, but still kinda hurt me when she apologized to me.

8. Veteran.

“My granduncle admitted to ki**ing POWs during the war. He was a lance-corporal in the 43rd Wessex, XXX Corps.

Wouldn’t say how many he ki**ed, but said that he and his mates would deliberately force the German POWs to run and then shoot them in the back to “prevent escape”.

He said he stopped after his CO discovered what was going on and gave him a stern warning.”

9. Some pending matters.

“Not a confession, but a denial and solid information that helped us clear a few pending matters.

I worked for a federal law enforcement agency. We covered major felonies, some of which relate to organized crime. Not “mafia” per se, but open ended criminal enterprises. We had a mid-level player as suspect for a string of cargo thefts, robberies, etc. Knew him for years. Arrested him several times. He taunted us a fair bit. Lung cancer got hold of him before we could build a solid case.

Things went downhill fast. Went to see him at home, just before he transferred to hospice. That he did at least 50% of what we suspected is an open secret. I knew it. He knew it.

For whatever reason, chose to give me a break. He said, “If I give you something, will you sit on it for a few weeks?” Initially, I could not agree. What if he was going to leak info about something in progress, etc. He assured me that it could wait. I agreed.

So, he said, “ I know that you are looking at me for the ________. I didn’t do it.” He admitted wanting to do it, told me who was reaponsible and where we could find solid evidence to implicate 5-6 people. Why did he tell me? Said the other guy “never treated anybody right.” Did not ask him to elborate.

I moved on the info about 3 weeks later, after the “informant” d**d. Never had to share info source because he pointed us to substantial corroborating info.”

10. Big secret.

“I didn’t see it, but my aunt watched her elderly mother fall down the stairs and confess just before she d**d 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.””

11. Sad.

“When I was in hospital, the guy in the bed next to me just asked to stop taking his meds as he was ready to d**. Last thing I heard him say was “There’s no one waiting for me at home, so I’m going where they are.”

Wasn’t really a shocking confession, just a lonely and heartbreaking one.”

12. Wow!

“I worked at a hospital in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a small town near Munich for the last 14 years.

My job there is not fancy at all, I move people around, throw the trash out and occasionally I take care of some handy-like work (fix a leaking shower head and stuff like that).

As you can imagine, I get to see a lot of patients that come and go, some of them pass away (such is life, I guess). I remember a few instances of people confessing to me their biggest regrets, here are some examples:

An old polish woman, told me that she regretted “not f**king Hitler when she had the chance” (her words). I wanted to ask her about more context, but I was afraid to be honest.

Another notable example was an old truck driver that used to work for an Easter Germany company, he told me that he once run over some kids with his truck and was too afraid to stop and check if they were ok.

Once another Polish lady told me that she used to be a p**stitute during 2nd World War and that she slept with “very high up” people in the government.

She told me that she did not regret that part of her life, but that she could not tell anyone and that was a heavy emotional drag. She also told me that she aborted more than five babies during that time.”

13. OMG.

“My grandma confessed to m**der.

Usually you’d think it was the pain relief, but she was such an eccentric it was actually believable.

We traced all her ex-husbands, partners and any other likely candidates and fortunately no one was missing or d**d an untimely d**th, but sometimes I wonder…”

14. Knocked up.

“My grandfather confessed that he had a son we never knew about.

He knocked up some woman and abandoned her and their son when the child was born and never saw them again. He wondered wistfully whether that boy (now over 50) ever thought of him, ever wanted to see him.

Right after he passed, his son found us! He’d searched the obituaries all around the country, every week for years. He was in Louisiana, where he and my grandfather had both been born. We were in Oregon, where grandpa d**d.”

15. Jumbled up.

“My grandfather told a bunch of stories about the Korean War, which he served in.

We later realized that none of the stories were true. They were all bits of episodes of M.A.S.H. He got the TV show episodes jumbled up with his real memories.

Brain cancer is a helluva drug.”

16. Don’t waste your life.

“My grandfather passed away from dementia about 10 years ago.

He didn’t seem to know that my grandma, my mom, and my dad were in the room with us.

He looked right at me with a sad look I’d never seen him give, and he begged me to not waste my life like he had done.

My grandma mostly kept her composure, but I could tell it added more pain to an already painful time.

Unfortunately, though I promised him I wouldn’t, I knew even back then that I would never be able to do anything except waste my life. Still true now.

I broke a promise to my grandpa the moment I made it.”

17. Don’t worry about it.

“Someone I worked with admitted to being the one who ate too much of the communal food weeks prior.

It was odd to me that that’s what was on his mind at the time. I hope he didn’t have too much guilt, but he kept going on about it.

We told him it was no problem, but I don’t think he even knew we were talking to him by then.”

18. I’m right here.

“My mom was I’m hospice probably a week or two before dying she confessed to having no daughter.

Being 11 and sheltered, I didn’t think immediately adoption. I thought she got some kind of dementia or amnesia and forgot about me.”

19. What a story.

“My great grandma admitted that my great grandpa, who we all thought was her first and only husband, was actually her second. The first was a man who she had 2 kids with before she offed him because he was abusive and then she left the kids at an orphanage.

She also torched their house after grabbing some valuables so that she could run away to another state and let everything in town think the fire ki**ed all four of them.

Her last words were that she always wished she could have found her first two children later in life so that she could explain why she left them behind.”

20. Noooooooo!

“My grandpa, a Sicilian man with blessed cooking skills, told us that his meatballs were actually frozen meatballs from the grocery store.

The horror!”

21. A happy ending.

“My dad spent my life riding my ass about being a great artist like he wanted to be and telling me I was an invalid because of my crippling anxiety, and I managed to move out with a boyfriend and go to college.

The last thing he told me was he was proud of me. He d**d of a sudden aneurysm not long after.

Best thing that could have happened.”

22. Sad.

“My grandmother told me that my grandfather (who had passed not long before her) could be a very mean man (mind you, none of his grandchildren ever saw anything other than a very caring, loving, man).

It pained me to know that at the time, divorce/leaving a relationship was practically impossible, and having to keep that secret must have been painful.”

23. A shocker.

“My grandmother confessed to my mother that she was not, in fact, her mother.

My mom already knew. She looks exactly like her father’s second wife. And so do her kids (me!). She’d asked a few dozen times in her life, if she was 2nd wife’s. Was always told no, no, you’re definitely mine.

So, Christmas Eve, she calls my mom and grandfather in to the hospital room and confesses.

I believe this was also the conversation that included ‘you’re not allowed to d** on Christmas and ruin it for the kids’. Because she was kind of awful.”

24. All alone.

“When he was dying of cancer, my wife’s cousin’s husband told me he r**ed his daughter.

Once I recovered from the shock I walked out and never saw him again, but it explained why he d**d alone in palliative care.”

25. Wow.

“Around the time my grandfather was really declining he started making strange remarks about a group of people that we were unfamiliar with, a lot of war stories, as well as the word “Kitchens” over and over.

He started talking about Kitchens, and we just thought it was ramblings and nonsense. After he passed, when we were cleaning out their house we came upon an old family book that was hand written by his grandfather. It was about the Denver boot-leggeers, focusing on a certain character who managed to run one of the bigger bootlegging operations in the area during Prohibition.

Then we came across some pictures in a box with a bunch of pins and a sash that was from the masons. the pictures all had my grandfather and his father posing with family members, as well as a random old guy dressed in what can only be described as a 1940’s era suit and hat that made him look like an old school gangster.

we then found out that there is a house that my aunt used to go to when she was a very young child that was supposedly owned by that old man in the photos. When i did some scoping on the property, it does not have a registered number on the street it resides, and is instead registered as an address that is 1 block over.

The house has no real address, and it is owned by a company that is run by some guy that my aunt and mom know to be related to us.

At this point, we think that Kitchens was a pseudo name for someone my grandfather was associated with within the Masons, and that this Kitchens fellow may be the man in the photos as well as even the inspiration for the main character in the handwritten book we found buried in the closet.”

How about you?

Have you ever heard a confession from someone who was about to pass away?

If so, please tell us about it in the comments. Thanks a lot!