An Elderly Man’s Moving Advice to a Grieving Woman Went Viral for Good Reason

Sadly, we will all go through the experience of losing people we love. It’s part of life, but that doesn’t stop it from being incredibly painful and gutwrenching.

A woman on Reddit lost someone important in her life and she turned to people on the Internet to help her get through the tough time. The title of her post was, “My friend just died. I don’t know what to do.”

Photo Credit: Pexels

That’s when the self-proclaimed “old” person offered up their advice. Be sure to read his entire post, because it is pretty incredible.

“Alright, here goes. I’m old. What that means is that I’ve survived (so far) and a lot of people I’ve known and loved did not. I’ve lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can’t imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here’s my two cents.

I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don’t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don’t want it to “not matter”. I don’t want it to be something that just passes.

Photo Credit: Flickr,michael_swan

My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can’t see.

As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

Photo Credit: Pexels

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.”

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

People were deeply moved by the old man’s eloquent words.

“I’m reading this now as I lay bedside by my mother who has had cancer for 6 months, and cancer won. She’s been on a morphine drip for the last few days. I’m trying to cope, and came across this. Thank you.”

“This is beautiful. You have helped more people than you know by posting this. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

“As much pain as it’s caused, the memories I have of my friends and family are much more pleasant. And when I feel like I’m floating, I hang on to those memories like a life preserver, and you know what? They work really well.”

Thank you for your thoughtful words, sir. I think they brought comfort to many strangers who needed them at exactly the right time.

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May 3, 2019

Washington May Become First State to Legalize “Human Composting”

It’s an age-old question that you’ve most likely thought about at one time or another: what will happen to your body after you die? Do you want to be buried in a cemetery? Cremated and spread into the ocean?

Photo Credit: Max Pixel

In what would be a historic move, it looks like Washington may be the first state to offer ‘human composting’ as an option after residents pass away. The method transforms human remains into soil, takes four to seven weeks to complete, and results in roughly a cubic yard of…well, compost.

Washington’s state legislature already passed a bill allowing human composting, and now it’s up to Governor Jay Inslee to sign the bill into law. If he does, the law will take effect in May 2020.

Here’s how it works: bodies are placed into large, cylindrical tubes filled with wood chips, alfalfa, and straw. A controlled amount of oxygen helps to speed up the decomposition, and after 4-7 weeks the transformation is complete. Family and friends can keep the soil in urns or do whatever they see fit with the remains.

Back to Earth: Washington set to allow 'human composting': https://www.kspr.com/content/news/Back-to-Earth-Washington-set-to-allow-human-composting-508906941.html

Posted by KSPR News on Monday, April 22, 2019

The process has been called an eco-friendly alternative to traditional burial and cremation, which releases 600 million pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.

It will be interesting to see what states follow Washington’s lead if the bill is signed into law.

Do you have thoughts on this matter? Share them in the comments below!

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May 3, 2019

16 People Share Their Weirdest, Wildest Family Secrets

Can you think of the most embarrassing thing a family member has done?

Okay, now take that and make it ten times worse. Because that’s what some of these folks had to go through.

And it all started with a simple question: What’s the most embarrassing thing a parent has done to you?

Enjoy this cavalcade of craziness…

1. Harry Potter trash…

Back in the day (2005) I was 14 and I would print out my erotic Harry Potter fan fiction to read at night, as we didn’t have portable devices like smartphones back then. I always threw them away after.

One day my mom gave me a gigantic see-through bag for trash and that night I read some of the good stuff and then put it in there.

There was probably like 15 pages of printed out smut. While I was at school she rooted through my trash.

She confronted me when I came home like “Why are Fred and George getting intimate with Hermione? What are these stories?? Where do you get them? Are they all like this??”

So so bad. I think I died and I’ve been a ghost for the last 13 years.

2. This one just keeps getting weirder and weirder…

My mom once pulled up my skirt, causing me to involuntarily flash a room full of people, at a family Christmas dinner.

I was absolutely mortified. She wanted to check for any potential self-harm scars on my thighs, apparently. I’ve never physically harmed myself before in my entire life.

I was 18 years old at the time, and thankfully I was wearing underwear so it was not as bad as it could have been.

Nevertheless, she should not be allowed to consume alcohol ever again.

3. Ignoring the eating disorder…

My family never talks about my sister’s eating disorder. She eats a ton and goes on to vomit. She goes jogging for one hour or more per day (every day, no breaks even though her knees hurt like crazy) and refuses to eat any carbs, fruits and vegetables only.

I seem to be the only one who realizes the magnitude of this, and the only one who thinks of this as a sickness, not as a “temporary phase.”

It’s been like this for three years already, and I have no idea when my parents noticed. Whenever I say something I get “shushed” at and later have to justify my “insensitive behavior” in front of my parents. So I just kind of gave up on arguing.

Not sure what I can do to change things without disrupting the family.

4. Grandma, the slacker…

My grandmother said she needed a place to stay one night due to issues with her housemate.

She slept on the couch… for the next ten years.

Made no effort to get her own place despite having a very good retirement income and still working part-time as a nurse.

Loved to hit the casino though!

5. Joke’s on you, parents!

It’s one in the morning. I’m fast asleep with my wife in the living room reading.

All of the sudden, the baby monitor is blaring my 16-month-old son’s laughter into my ear. So I jump up, run into his room, and he’s standing in his crib pointing at the corner of the room and giggling hysterically.

I just stared at him for a few seconds before I grabbed him and put him in bed with me.

6. That last part, tho…

About a year ago, my parents caught me singing to my microwave while I was waiting for it to warm up a piece of pizza.

This all happened at 4 in the morning, when I thought my parents were staying at a friend’s.

Oh, I almost forgot that I was naked.

7. The war at home!

My uncle and grandfather don’t have a good relationship but were tolerating each other because it was Thanksgiving. My uncle was cooking lasagna and my grandfather decided to help, so he grated the cheese. He did this in another room, because the kitchen was full of other people cooking, we have a big Thanksgiving with maybe 15 or 20 who love to eat.

I had brought in the cheese and everything was going fine. Flashforward to dinner time, the food is coming out and, as tradition dictates, we always start with lasagna. My grandfather made some joke like,” I know you hate me, but at least I’m grate,” and stuff hit the fan.

My uncle literally went into a rage and was yelling at everyone because we didn’t tell him he was using “tainted” cheese. Then said “f*** it” and proceeded to flip the table ALL the food was on. Then my grandfather called him outside to settle the score, which resulted in two grown men fist fighting in the backyard, culminating with my grandad getting thrown into the pond we lived off of, and slicing his leg on a jagged rock that he landed on.

The rest of us ordered Chinese food and kicked my uncle out. My grandfather refused the hospital because he had a little too much “holiday joy” in him at the time.

Surprising my uncle hasn’t come to holidays in years now.

8. Hugs, not drugs…

When I was 11 years old, I was taken in by the police for questioning regarding illicit substances distribution that had been taking place out of our family’s house.

My dad had marijuana growing in the basement, and he had been using it as well as selling it frequently to neighbors and friends.

When the police raided the house while my dad was at work, they asked me if I knew anything about what was in the room. Since I admitted to having had knowledge of it, I guess that that was all it took for them to feel the need to bring me in for questioning. They even cuffed me and everything.

My dad didn’t show up at the police station till almost eight hours later.

As you can imagine, in a small town like the one where I grew up, people talked. A lot. It also didn’t help that I lived next to a massive apartment complex where everyone could see what was happening the entire time as it was unfolding.

I was the talk of the town for almost two years because of this incident.

9. A dog with amazing comedic timing!

One Thanksgiving, my grandmother ran out of counter space and stuff was sorta burning like crazy on top of the stove. She took out the turkey on the tray, looked around, and put it on the ground for like three seconds.

She intended for it to be there for three seconds.

Her dog, Rosco, had been following her all day.

Earlier she tossed him a turkey giblet, and I guess that didn’t sit well with him. He defecated all over my grandma’s leg, floor, and freshly-cooked turkey in one explosive two-second blast of fiery diarrhea.

10. “Dad! Why can’t we go to the fair?!?”

Here’s a story that my dad never told me but my uncle shared after my dad passed.

He was madly in love with a girl when he was 17 years old. They were soul mates, lovers meant to be, engaged to be married and grow old together, all that sweet jazz.

They went to the county fair one year and decided to ride the Ferris Wheel. About the time they got to the top and started heading back down the safety bar came unhooked and swung open. My dad grabbed her and held onto the seat. He tried to hold her but he couldn’t.

She fell to her death.

My dad never mentioned it, never said a word to anyone, even to my mom. My uncle said her death broke his heart and he was never the same again, until after I was born.

He would never let me go to fairs, amusement parks, or any place with rides when I was growing up and we used to get into big fights about it when all my friends were going.

He always told me it was just because they were dangerous and didn’t want me to get hurt.

11. This art is s**t!

When I was six years old my mother used to babysit my neighbor Annie. Annie was a very artistic girl; she loved to color and draw everything she saw.

One day, I was playing Star Fox 64 on my Nintendo 64 and Annie was watching. Of course, being too absorbed in the game, I never turned around to see her greatest work of art.

My mom walks in the room to check on us and does a gasp to end all gasps. Annie had made a drawing of a triangular looking ship with a circle around it.

It was Star Fox doing a barrel roll except she made it with a load of diarrhea she scooped out of her pants.

12. The other child…

Apparently, our dad had another kid about eight years older than me.

My mom blurted something out about it after their divorce when she was pissed about something. It was along the lines of, “if he thinks he can forget you exist like that other kid of his.” She then turned very white and I was never able to get more out of her than that.

My dad pretends he doesn’t know what I’m talking about but has apparently told my brother a bit of the story and then backtracked and never talked about it again.

So yeah, apparently I’m not the oldest.

13. The clairvoyant kid!

A few weeks ago, I was getting breakfast ready for my three-year-old when he nonchalantly told me his Grandma fell down the stairs.

About an hour later, Grandpa calls us to tell us Grandma had fallen down the stairs.

Also last weekend, he said my sister was going to visit the next day.

Guess who showed up the next day for a “surprise” visit?

14. Who’s the monster?

My three-year-old daughter stood next to her newborn brother, looked at him for a while.

Then she turned to me and said, “Daddy, it’s a monster! We should bury it.”

I didn’t bury it.

15. That YouTube search history tho…

That when my daughter was five or six years old, she would look up videos of dogs throwing up or stallions urinating, based on her YouTube history.

I never directly spoke to her about this but have always told her that she can always talk to me about any questions she had about any subject with no judgment from me.

She’s 14 now and I still haven’t said a word.

16. Bad, bad, bad dad!

My dad, influenced at least in part by the movie Bad Boys II, decided to mess with my boyfriend on my first date by acting like a tough guy.

He filled a whiskey bottle with tea and, when he answered the door, he started chugging down the whole thing while scanning my boyfriend up and down.

He then tried to break the bottle over his own head. The date was canceled due to the ensuing hospital trip, and I became known as the girl with a totally insane father.

“Don’t concuss yourself this time, Dad!” became the running joke in my house once I was able to get a date again.

Yikes! These were nuts!

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April 18, 2019

Study Confirms That Bad Diets Are Now Killing More People Than Smoking

Did you know that poor diet is responsible for killing roughly 11 million people worldwide? That number sounds staggering, but it’s true. We as a society are eating wayyy too much salt, meat, and sugar, and it’s collectively killing us.

Well, now we have even more proof. In a new study, researchers looked at the diets of people in 195 countries and estimated the impact of poor diet on the risk of death from such ailments as diabetes, heart disease, and specific kinds of cancers. The study also looked at the number of deaths from smoking and drug use.

Photo Credit: pxhere

The lead author of the study, Ashkan Afshin of the University of Washington, said, “This study shows that poor diet is the leading risk factor for deaths in the majority of the countries of the world.” Afshin added that poor diets are “a larger determinant of ill health than either tobacco or high blood pressure.”

Photo Credit: Max Pixel

The research showed that the countries with the best diets and with the lowest rates of diet-related diseases are Spain, Israel, France, and Japan. In the study, the United States ranked 43rd.

Afshin said that countries where people eat a diet that resembles the Mediterranean diet see the lowest rates of diet-related deaths. This diet sees a high intake of fruits, vegetables, nuts and healthy oils.

There is a huge disparity around the world in food consumption, as 800 million people don’t have enough to eat, while on the other hand, 1.9 billion people are overweight.

Photo Credit: pxhere

It’s a complicated issue that gets even more difficult when you consider that if everyone on Earth decided to eat a healthy, balanced diet all the time, there wouldn’t be enough fruits and vegetables to go around, and they would eventually run out.

The authors of the study admit that coordinated, global efforts are needed to address these pressing problems.

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April 2, 2019

In 1937, Angelo Hays was declared dead…

In 1937, Angelo Hays was declared dead and buried 3 days later. 2 days after that, an insurance investigation exhumed him and found him in a coma. He made a complete recovery. He later invented a coffin complete with upholstery, a food locker, chemical toilet, library, and radio transmitter.

March 28, 2019

Your life really does flash…

Your life really does flash before your eyes when you die. A study interviewing participants with “near death” experiences found that they re-witnessed very emotional experiences again, and lost all sense of time. One subject said “It was like being there for centuries.”

March 16, 2019

15 People Talk About the Mistake That Nearly Killed Them

Have you ever had a close call with death? A situation that you shouldn’t have been in at all, and were lucky to get out of. I was in a pretty bad van accident when I was younger, and it was definitely a moment that made me take stock of my fleeting mortality.

AskReddit users opened up and shared their personal stories about big mistakes that almost cost them their lives.

1. Electric shock

“Many years ago I owned a pub.

I went upstairs to the house area to find all the lights were off. I flicked the trip switches to turn the lights back on; which they did. I then heard running water from my co owners fishtank in the lounge, turns out the protein skimmer had flipped over and was spilling water over the wall socket.

Instincively (and very stupidly) went to turn off the plug and as soon as i touched it got sent flying over the back of the sofa.

Dont know how im still alive to this day.”

2. Not very bright

“As teenagers we used to smoke pot in the garage in the car with it running for hours. No idea how we didn’t kill everyone in the house multiple times over.”

3. Dear old Dad

“My dad got trashed and tried to jump over the fence at Yankee Stadium with his friends. He failed and an iron spike punctured him. He remembers being rushed to the hospital and bleeding everywhere. Everyone thought he was going to die of blood loss. Didn’t die but he also made several more stupid mistakes such as riding a motorcycle without a helmet and breaking several ribs etc etc. Honestly he is still stupid and I’m surprised he hasn’t died yet.”

4. Iraq

“Driving over an IED in Iraq that’s battery had gone bad in the heat. If the battery was live i wouldn’t be.

Edit: a lot of people are wondering how i knew that it was there when it didn’t go off, so here is the answer to that.

I was in a rural area. I didn’t see some disturbed dirt in the dirt road that we were driving on, but my lieutenant in the passenger seat almost shit his pants because his life flashed before his eyes. He literally curled into a ball in his seat. I asked him what was up. And he said he was sure that there was something back there. We were currently escorting troop carriers to drop off a foot patrol in the middle of nowhere, so after we completed our drop off we went back on his order to check out the spot. My truck was the only one with an RF jammer, so i took the lead up to the spot my lieutenant had seen. When i say it i thought to myself, “Holy fuck, how did i not see that?” I was the “demo” guy since we didn’t have enough EOD in the area, so i went up to it, saw the pressure plate and wires. Dug it up and there is was. A battery with the battery acid all leaked out. They didn’t bury it deep enough, and it was the middle of summer.

About 130f out. Not good for the battery. Under the battery and pressure plate was a box, about the size of a footlocker filled with explosives and accelerant. If it had gone off my whole truck would have been dust. We had to do a controlled demo since EOD was busy, and after we took it out half the road had a 5 foot deep crater in it.”

5. Close call

“Pissing off a cliff, wasted on Jack Daniels. My girlfriend at the time pulled me back by my sweatshirt, or that would’ve been it.”

6. Swept away

“Climbed onto one of those underpasses that allow river water to flow through when I was like, 5. Got swept in the current and taken down the river. Only reason I survived is my dad saw my long hair barely under the current and jumped in to save me.”

7. Be careful with the laundry chute

“Playing with the laundry chute in my childhood home when I was around 5 years old. My cousins and I took turns dropping things down the chute while someone else stood at the bottom and dodged them. For the most part it was things like washcloths, stuffed animals, a clothing item, etc.

Just so happened that when I stood under the chute, my cousin dropped a 5 lb dumbbell down and I, expecting something harmless, didn’t get out of the way. That ended the game real quick. I now part my hair in a way that hides the bald spot scar on my head.”

8. Actually died

“I fell down my friends basement stairs when I was 8 (hit my head on the concrete floor) and ended up being airlifted to a major city hospital after being knocked out and still screaming. Ended waking up a couple days later and found out I was missing a tooth and I was told that as they were putting a breathing tube in, it knocked my tooth down my throat which scared the docs more. But I was super happy cause I payed melee for the first time in the game room and ate jellow for meals.

Turns out that I was actually in a comatose state and gradually got worse over 48 hours until I had 0 brain activity for about 6 minutes. So I guess I did die but I didn’t find out from my family till afterwards, because who tells an 8 yr old that they died.”

9. Big mistake

“3 years old. Love M&Ms. Find blue ones behind stove. Yum.

Rat poison.”

10. Toilet accident

“Carrying a toilet by myself after having painted the bathroom. Got caught up in the drop cloth and fell on the toilet smashing it and a piece of the porcelain cut into my knee. My father was there with me and immediately took me to the hospital as the bleeding was pretty decent.

The doctor told me that the piece missed an artery by 1/4” and that if I had been a smaller man I’d have bled out before I made it to the hospital. Being a very large man (6’2” and 350lbs at the time) saved my life.”

11. Joe vs. The Volcano

“I nearly fell into a f*cking volcano leaning on a rope fence

Edit: Holy sh*t this comment blew up. Right, more context, I was 8-9 at the time, and I managed to catch myself on that same fence after I nearly keeled over it (I never let go of stuff when I fall). This was in Italy, hence the lack of actual safety procedures.”

12. Skateboarding accident

“This was 13 years ago. I was skateboarding with some buddies at a busy shopping center. A few minutes before leaving, we were waiting at a crosswalk to cross the street. One of my friends takes off running across the crosswalk, and my other buddies follow suit. So I took off as well. I was not even paying attention to the light, but the lane crossing the crosswalk was on a green light.

My two friends in front were in the clear, but myself and one of my other friends were both hit by a Uhaul truck (yes really, trust me I got shit for YEARS about getting hit by a huge, bright orange truck) going probably 40-45mph. My friend in front of me didn’t get hit too bad. I got hit square in the chest. I had no clue at the time what even had happened. I was running, then I was on the ground in a daze, no pain, and I even got up and instinctually ran back to the sidewalk that I had come from. No clue I’d been hit by a truck, I was more just like what in the fuck just happened.

A nurse that was at the light came and helped me, told me what had happened and helped me stay calm. She asked if I was having trouble breathing. I was. But it was attributed to me having asthma. Later found out it was because both of my lungs were punctured.

Anyways, the ambulance shows up. I’m holding up very well, no clue why. Kinda just thinking okay damn I must have gotten super lucky. I’m conscious, talking fine, no biggie. They only had one bed in the ambulance, so my buddy was lying on it, and I was sitting hunched over on the bench for the ride (I wish I was joking). We get to the hospital, and I try to pull myself up to get out of the ambulance.

And I can’t, my shoulders hurt way too bad. The EMS guys tell me I probably dislocated my shoulder and that I’ll just have to get it popped in and before I know it I’ll be back home. Once inside, WE GET PUT IN THE WAITING ROOM. No I am not joking. We had skateboards with us, and the desk people had no clue. They assumed we just fell on our skateboards or something.

So I’m still feeling pretty good, other than some sore shoulders, just chilling there watching wheel of fortune. When all of a sudden I start feeling super clammy and disorientied. I remember hearing my mom screaming “HE’S GOING INTO SHOCK”, and then next thing I know I’m being wheeled down a bunch of hallways. It was like in shows where it’s a blur of those florescent lights just flashing overhead one at a time.

I start having severe pain. Like the worst pain you could imagine. But I can’t be given an painkillers yet, because I have to go through a bunch of tests first. I’d assume these tests should have been done right when I got there, but what do I know. The one I really remember is having to be picked up off of the bed and put onto one of the machines that required I be on my back. They had people grab each corner of the sheet from the bed that I was on to move me onto it. I remember it kind of squishing my shoulders inward a bit and holy shiiiiiiiiit that was the worst pain I’ve ever felt.

Anyways, after a ton of tests, it’s found out that both of my lungs are punctured. Both of my collar bones are snapped in half. Broken ribs. Cracked sternum. Concussion. The works. Ended up spending the next couple weeks in ICU.

They didn’t have any hospital beds open for me at the time so I actually ended up being transferred to a children’s hospital. It was fucking sweet. People came and sang to me and brought me teddy bears n shit. And I was just jacked up on morphine watching Lord of Rings all the time.

But yeah it was a pretty tough recovery, and I went from just hanging out with a smile on my face to a scary place real quick. I went to a world-renowned clavicle specialist at Duke Medical for my collar bones. He normally had an insanely long wait list, but apparently when he found out that I broke both at the same time he was willing to see me ASAP.

He told me that he’d only ever had a few patients that broke both at the same time, because the force required to do so almost always resulted in death. But eventually I got better, full recovery. Was a bit of a hypochondriac for a while, and was scared to cross the street for awhile. But other than that, no biggie.”

13. Always wear a helmet

“Not wearing a helmet while on a bicycle and stupidly turning left just as a car overtook me.

Somehow I only got a neat scar through my eyebrow and some torn up kneecaps from it. But the look on my mother’s face when she picked me up from the hospital…That made me realise how profoundly stupid I was that day.

Edit: I did make a turn signal with my arm, but the driver apparently didn’t see it. He later went over to the hospital to ask if I was OK and to apologise for hitting me.”

14. Tangled up

“Tubing behind a speedboat. Pulled myself too far forward. It submarined and popped up in the air. I was flung forward and got tangled in the towrope.”

15. The garage door

“Retensioning a garage door spring and the tension tool popped out. The door crashed with enough force to crack the pavement.

Edit: had no idea so many others have died doing this. Going forward would never do this again.”

The post 15 People Talk About the Mistake That Nearly Killed Them appeared first on UberFacts.

March 4, 2019

10+ People Share the Dark Secret a Loved One Took to Their Grave

You’ve probably heard that joke about how “If I die, my bestie needs to delete my hard drive” or “grab the box under my bed and burn it.” Basically, it’s just a way to avoid having embarrassing details about you come to light after you’re gone. But what if you never made that pact with someone?

These 15 people know a little bit about that, because they discovered some doozies after saying goodbye to family and friends.

#1. He had his demons.

“My grandfather was apparently very abusive to my grandma and my dad when he was growing up.

He was also a heavy alcoholic at the time, and I think that played a large role in it. At some point, he stopped drinking all together and that that apparently helped things a lot and their family life stabilized.

It’s just weird because I only ever knew him as a sweet frail old man who wouldn’t even curse in front of me. But he had his demons and likely caused a lot of emotional damage to my father and grandmother.”

#2. A donor-father.

“My boss at my first job was a donor-father to a lesbian couple that he was friends with.

He was older when he got married. Reading through the lines of conversations over the 8 years I knew him, I learned that he and his wife tried to have kids together but it never worked out for them.

A few months after retirement, he was diagnosed with cancer, and passed away less than a year later.

When his obituary was published, it mentioned a daughter, and again it was mentioned at the funeral. He had only mentioned this to a few people, despite maintaining a relationship with the daughter for 10 years, travelling to see her on a regular basis.”

#3. Why did he lie for so long?

“I guess it’s not that dark, but apparently my grandfather’s middle name was secretly Ralph.

He was 80 years old when he died. He lived with us for years and years and years. All that time he told us very emphatically that he didn’t have a middle name, and as far as we all knew, he never used one for anything. I assume my grandmother must have known, since she did all their legal paperwork, but she died before anyone else found out and she took his secret to her grave too. Even my parents only learned that he had lied about it when they went to execute his will and saw a middle name printed on his death certificate, then found it on a bunch of his other papers.

It was just a really bizarre revelation. Nobody still alive has any idea why he lied to everyone for so long about it. Maybe not a dark secret per se, but he certainly acted as if it was.”

#4. At family dinner.

“My grandpa gave my grandma crabs when he cheated on her with his future wife. For some reason my grandma brought it up at a family dinner. Out of no where.”

#5. 3 families.

“my grandfathers other family.

my grandfather was a sailor (cook) in the Canadian navy. while in port down in the Caribbean he and a friend went around the island exploring both the island and the local women.

well a few years before he died he showed me a picture of him, a kid and a women while he was in uniform, it was ONE of the kids that was his.

when he died I got his big trunk of military stuff and in a wallet in the bottom was another picture, with 2 more kids and him with a women.

my grandfather had 3 families my mother doesnt know about.”

#6. A really difficult time.

“My mom passed suddenly this February and my aunt couldn’t wait to tell me about the abortion my mom had when she was 14. She spared no detail. I could have gone the rest of my life without knowing that. It put some distance between me and my grandparents during a really difficult time when we should have been supporting each other.”

#7. No one knew.

“She had full blown AIDS. She was always very thin because of another medical condition, but no one knew she was HIV positive, let alone dying of AIDS.”

#8. Secretly a Klan member.

“My girlfriend’s great grandfather was a sweet old man that died when she was a very little girl. After he died, the family was going through his things, and found his diary. Turns out that he was secretly a Klan member.”

#9. Gangsters and guns.

“For much of my childhood, my mom helped out an older lady named Mary with groceries, doctor’s appointments, etc. It began as a charity effort through her church aerobics group (90s), but the rest of the group lost interest, and my mom kept it up for many more years. Mary’s family was a mess, poor all around with various members either strung out or in various states of dysfunction. Her great-granddaughter actually lived with us for a while, and my mom did something with, or for, Mary probably 3-4 times a week.

When Mary eventually died a few years ago, my mother went to her funeral and met Mary’s sister for the first time, and got to talking. My mom knew that Mary had been married and widowed twice. What she didn’t know is that Mary’s first husband was a gangster, and that he died when Mary took his gun and shot him in the head. She managed to get herself committed on mental grounds rather than incarcerated, and met her second husband at the mental facility.

EDIT- A few add-ons. Although it was not explicit in the story as I heard it, there was an implication that the first marriage was abusive, not a stretch to imagine for a Baltimore mobster in the 40s. According to the sister, one day husband #1 was getting picked up by his friends to go do mobster things, and left his holster and pistol inside. He told Mary to go get it, and she did, then shot him with it in broad daylight outside their house. Apparently she was always a talented actor/manipulator (which rings true), and put on a good show at the trial, hence the very light consequence.”

#10. Not so dark.

“Not so dark but as we were cleaning out my grandfather’s car after he passed we found a huge tub of cheese puffs (something he wasn’t allowed to have because of his strict diet) in the trunk.”

#11. My poor dad.

“I have two.

My grandfather was a bastardized his entire life. Abusive and cruel. The family lived in poverty,very hand to mouth and scraped for every thing they had, which was not much.

On his deathbed he told my grandmother that he had been hoarding money his entire life. He saved a couple of million. Grandma took herself on a trip around the world and then gave the rest of the money to a zoo. Gave none to her children.

Grandfather and grandmother had fourth child, who was born with disabilities. Grandfather declared he would not have made a child with disabilities, therefore the child was a product of an affair. He allowed the child (whose life expectancy was a few years) to come home, but demanded his wife ignore the child. My dad and his siblings (who were still young children themselves) provided all the care, until the child died in toddlerhood.

My poor dad. Between his home and Vietnam he was so messed up. He couldn’t rise to the challenge of sticking around and parenting, but damn after all he experienced I give him credit for never laying a hand on us, trying his best and then leaving when he knew he just couldn’t.”

#12. Did not get the tattoo.

“My dad committed suicide when I was 11. He had longstanding issues with all kinds of drugs, and I always had a soft spot for him because 1. he was my dad and 2. I felt like my family just hated him bc he did drugs, even though he wasn’t that bad of a guy. I was strongly considering getting a tattoo to memorialise him when I turned 18.

When I was 17 I found out that he used to beat and rape my mom on a regular basis. She said he would literally corner her when she came out of the shower and force her to have sex. He was also physically abusive toward my brother (we have different dads). Also, also, while my mom was pregnant with me (actually on her due date), he pushed her down our basement steps, which are the most jagged, stiff, wooden steps leading to our concrete basement.

Did not get that tattoo…”

#13. He never took his hat off in public.

“Our farm caretaker always wore a ballcap… always, for a 40 yr+ history He died from a tumor on his scalp that had eaten into his skull. He never took his hat off in public, none of us had any idea.”

#14. Fascinating stuff.

“I volunteer at a research library as an amateur genealogist, so I have so, so many. I find all the skeletons in the closet. My personal favorite is a woman who wanted to find out about her great aunt– she’d been told her aunt ran away from home at sixteen and was never seen by the family again.

Turns out the aunt actually was jailed for stealing a bunch of money from her brother. While in jail it came out that she was secretly married to a guy who was wanted as part of a ring of thieves stealing silver cutlery from fancy hotels. That was her third marriage and she was 20 and Catholic, so her family cut her off. She eventually moved across the state and remarried twice more before eventually getting hitched to a farmer. They were married 18 years when she died. Oh, and the great uncle my client had been told died of the flu? Was murdered on his front porch in a fight over a beer bottle.

Also: sooooo many people had two families. Tons of secret adoptions. Lots of moving around for less than savory reasons. Genealogy is fascinating stuff.

So I guess I mostly deal in things that weren’t secrets at the time but are now.”

#15. Actually.

“My grandfather always told me growing up that his sister died after being struck by lightning. He always had great, vivid, not always child-friendly but definitely colorful stories, and i thought nothing of it.”

Fast forward ten years, I’m talking to my dad about it after doing some digging through old photos. I told him what his father had told me about his aunt, and commented on how sad it was. After five minutes of laughing so hard he couldn’t catch a breath, he told me that she had actually blown herself up in a meth-cooking accident.”

Make the pact with your besties today, y’all. You’ll feel better.

The post 10+ People Share the Dark Secret a Loved One Took to Their Grave appeared first on UberFacts.

February 21, 2019

This Woman Finally Got the ‘Smoking Hot Body’ She Always Wanted… In Her Obituary

If you’re fortunate enough to live a long life, one long enough that you can actually plan for your passing away, do yourself a favor and write your own obituary.

If you need more convincing, take the example of Sybil Marie Hicks. She wrote her own obituary shortly before she died on February 2, and it is absolutely hilarious.

Hicks started the obituary by saying, “It hurts me to admit it…but I, Mrs. Ron Hicks from Baysville, have passed away.”

She also called her husband a “Horse’s Ass” and joked about her children who she says she “tolerated over the years.”

But Ms. Hicks saved the best line for herself: “I finally have the smoking hot body I have always wanted. Having been cremated.”

Photo Credit: Twitter

Zing!

Hicks also talked about a “Dorothy” now taking care of her husband, but some think it was just another example of the late woman’s sense of humor.

Photo Credit: Twitter

Hicks’ obituary rightfully went viral and her daughter commented on the attention.

Photo Credit: Twitter

Man, this lady was hilarious.

The post This Woman Finally Got the ‘Smoking Hot Body’ She Always Wanted… In Her Obituary appeared first on UberFacts.