"A mother brought lunch for days to her deceased daughter" – Doctors share surreal reactions to death news

The elderly lady cared devotedly for her husband while he was dying in the hospital. We thought the death news would break her, but instead, she reached into her bag with relief, pulled out a flask of strong liquor, opened it, and took a good swig. "Sorry, but I had to drink to this," she said, beaming.

The elderly mother said nothing when I told her that her daughter’s organs had failed and there was nothing more we could do. She sat quietly in the waiting room for a while, then left. But the next day, she returned with her usual package: broth and juice. It was heart-wrenching to tell her again that her daughter had died. She stayed for hours, occasionally asking a passing nurse when she could see her daughter, who was "surely very hungry by now." They had no other relatives or friends, just the two of them, so we couldn’t notify anyone else. She kept coming back for two more weeks, searching for her daughter, then gradually stopped. This was the most moving experience of my career—the mother unable to accept the loss of her only child.

The reaction of a man in his forties to his wife’s sudden death was to punch the air joyfully.

A young woman in her twenties closed her eyes and sighed deeply when I told her her aunt had passed away during the night. But then a wide smile spread across her face as she said she was already heading to the tattoo parlor. Seeing my puzzled look, she explained that although her aunt raised her, she made her life miserable, so the day of her death would always be a celebration. "I’m getting today’s date tattooed on me, and it will always bring me joy when I see it."

I had to tell the parents that their 28-year-old son had died. He succumbed to diseases related to alcoholism, essentially drinking himself to death. When I expressed my condolences, the mother looked sharply at me and said, "No." I shook my head in confusion, and the father replied, "He did this to himself; no one deserves sympathy." Then they turned and left.

The widow simply said, "Thank God, I don’t have to deal with that awful divorce anymore—the lawyer cost a fortune!"

"Can I see him one last time?" the wife asked. I told her of course, to say goodbye to her husband. A few minutes later, she came out smiling and said, "It’s good—I just wanted to make sure that bastard was really gone."

A middle-aged man died of a heart attack, and many relatives were in the waiting room. I sadly shared the news, and one elderly lady—probably his mother—whispered that his soul was already in heaven. The rest of the family scoffed and said that if there is a God, then Thomas was surely in the deepest pits of hell. Everyone nodded in agreement.

Two brothers in their twenties had been sitting silently outside the hospital room for hours. When they saw me approaching, they nervously stood up, listened tensely as I explained we did everything we could but couldn’t save their father, then after a pause, they looked at each other, jumped up, and laughed while giving each other a high five.