1. The Braid
An elderly lady who suffered a stroke was paralyzed on one side and was so grateful she cried when I braided her hair the day before she died. She said she didn’t want to pass away with messy hair.
2. The Cable
A young woman, seven months pregnant, wanted to surprise her husband by mowing the lawn but accidentally ran over an electric cable with the mower and got shocked. She needed resuscitation both in the ambulance and in our treatment room. We did everything we could, but her injuries were too severe. Sadly, we couldn’t save her or the baby.
I was still a resident and wasn’t the one to break the news to her husband, but I saw his face when he was told—and it still haunts me to this day.
3. The Man
One evening, a dying man came up to me in the hallway and told me he had an apartment but, due to illness, hadn’t worked for years. His gas and electricity were cut off, so he was very cold and hadn’t eaten in two days. I found him a bed, we fed him, and he was very grateful. He passed away the next day.
4. The Father
A 33-year-old man suffered a heart attack on the night his first child was born, and we couldn’t save him. His parents kept repeating, “But his son was just born…”
5. The Marathon
A 24-year-old man collapsed just before the finish line of a half marathon with his friends. I remember the young guys in the waiting room, their faces full of disbelief. They couldn’t grasp how their friend, who was laughing and running beside them one moment, could be dead the next.
I had to call his parents. His father, a doctor, asked many questions—if we gave epinephrine, if we shocked him enough, and so on. He couldn’t believe his perfectly healthy son had died, only to be struck down at 24 by a hidden heart muscle disease (cardiomyopathy).
6. The Sleep
A 20-year-old woman came in for a routine surgery, cheerfully sharing her plans and dreams, but never woke up from anesthesia.
7. The Husband
Usually, deaths don’t affect me deeply because patients often arrive already dying, leaving little time to form personal bonds. But one case stayed with me—not at the moment it happened, but later.
A 35-year-old woman with cancer begged me to spend her last days at home with her family instead of the hospital. I usually don’t allow this, but I gave in because the disease had spread throughout her body and she only had days left.
Four years later, her husband came to see me. I remembered him. He said he was very grateful that his wife could be at home in her final weeks, allowing her to pass with dignity surrounded by family—and the children could say goodbye. I told him it was my pleasure, then locked myself in my office and cried for an hour.
8. The Veteran
An elderly man who had served in the war. He couldn’t eat because cancer had spread to his jaw. There wasn’t much we could do besides giving him pain relief. He died alone; he had no relatives, and only a fellow frail, elderly veteran came to collect his ashes.
9. The Birthday
It’s not uncommon for patients to feel a bit better just before they pass. This happened with a 33-year-old woman who was joking with her little girl in the hospital. They planned that the child would bring her a slice of cake from her birthday the next day.
The woman died unexpectedly an hour before her family arrived. When I saw the little girl alone in the waiting room, wearing a birthday hat and holding a plastic container with a slice of cake, my throat tightened with emotion.
10. The Family
A young mother whose family I got to know over one and a half years of visits until cancer took her. The loss of a mother in a family with young children is indescribable. I still tear up thinking about them.
