Questions to Ask Your Mom Before She Dies
Questions for the conversations you want to have with your mother while there is still time: her life and memories, what she wants medically and afterward, and what she wants you to know.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
What would you like to talk about today?
Why ask it
Starts with her choice rather than your list. On a day when she is tired, this may be the only question you need to ask.
What are you glad you did?
Why ask it
Easier to answer than a question about achievement, and it tends to produce specific scenes rather than a summary of a life.
What do you want me to know about your childhood?
Why ask it
Gentle ground, and the part of her life you have least of. Ask about the ordinary details as well as the events.
Which of your memories of me do you go back to?
Why ask it
You will keep this answer. It also shows which version of you she holds, which is usually not the one you would have guessed.
Who mattered to you that I never met?
Why ask it
Names friends, colleagues and relatives who would otherwise vanish from the family record completely.
What are you grateful for now?
Why ask it
Answers narrow as illness goes on, often to small daily things. Hearing that is hard, but it is also a guide to what to bring and what to do.
What do you want me to do more of, or less of, right now?
Why ask it
Practical and immediate. Care given the wrong way exhausts both of you, and she may not offer the correction unless asked.
Is there anyone you want to see or speak to?
Why ask it
Time-sensitive, and something you can act on today. Ask about people she has fallen out with as well as people she misses.
Is there anything you want me to say to someone for you?
Why ask it
Some messages are easier passed on than delivered in person. Write down the words she uses rather than paraphrasing them.
Is there anything about our family we've never talked about?
Why ask it
Late honesty about family tends to arrive in fragments. Take what is offered and do not press for the rest in the same sitting.
What traditions or recipes shouldn't stop with you?
Why ask it
Concrete enough to answer on a hard day, and it gives her something to hand over rather than only something to lose.
What was the hardest thing you went through, and what got you through it?
Why ask it
The second half matters most. What she relied on then may be what she needs offered to her now.
Is there anything you regret, or wish you had said?
Why ask it
Ask once, gently, and let it go if the answer is no. Regret is shared more easily when nothing is expected in response.
Is there anyone you want to forgive, or ask forgiveness from?
Why ask it
Occasionally the most important question here. Be ready to help arrange a call or a visit rather than only to listen.
What are you frightened of?
Why ask it
Fears are often practical rather than existential: pain, being alone, being a burden. Practical fears can usually be addressed.
What do you want to happen medically if things get worse?
Why ask it
Ask before a crisis rather than during one. Ask also whether it is written down and who else knows, because otherwise the decision falls to whoever is in the room.
What do you want at your funeral, and what would you rather we skipped?
Why ask it
Plain answers here spare the family arguments later: burial or cremation, who speaks, which music, whether she wants it religious.
What should I do with your things?
Why ask it
Specific instructions, however small, take the guilt out of deciding later. Note anything she has promised to a particular person.
What do you want me to tell your grandchildren about you?
Why ask it
Gives her a say in how she is described to people who may not remember her, and it is a question most mothers welcome.
Is there anything you want to say that I haven't asked about?
Why ask it
Leave this open and unhurried. It is the question that most often produces the thing you would otherwise never have heard.
When's a good time of day for me to sit with you?
Why ask it
Practical, and it makes clear you intend to come back. Illness reorganizes the day, and her best hours may not be the ones you would guess.
What were your favorite years?
Why ask it
Easier than asking about a whole life. The answer is usually a specific stretch, a job, a street, a decade, which you can then ask about properly.
What do you remember about your own mother and father?
Why ask it
This is the generation that goes unrecorded. Ask about voices and habits as well as names and dates.
Who are the people in these photographs?
Why ask it
Do this while you can. Unlabeled photographs become anonymous within one generation, and naming them is work she can do on a low-energy day.
What was your working life like?
Why ask it
Often the part of a mother's life her children know least about, and one she may be glad to be asked about for once.
What was your marriage actually like?
Why ask it
Ask if you want the version behind the family story. Late answers are often frank, and they may change how you read your own childhood.
What are you proud of that has nothing to do with us?
Why ask it
Steps around the expected answer about her children. Many mothers have an achievement of their own they assume nobody is interested in.
What's been the hardest part of this illness, apart from the obvious?
Why ask it
The answer is often loss of independence, boredom, or being talked over rather than pain. All three can be acted on.
Is there anything you'd like to see, hear or eat again?
Why ask it
Small and deliverable. A record, a beach, a particular bread. One of the few questions here with an answer you can act on this week.
What do you want me to stop worrying about?
Why ask it
Dying parents spend energy managing their children's distress. Asking directly can take some of that weight off both of you.
Who should I make sure knows, and who would you rather I told myself?
Why ask it
Easily forgotten until it is urgent. Ask for names and numbers, and write them down while she can supply them.
Have you made arrangements, and is there anything you want changed?
Why ask it
Wills, accounts, funeral plans. Better raised as a question about her wishes than as a question about money.
Having these conversations
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Timing and pacing
Follow her energy, not your list
Twenty minutes on a good morning is worth more than a whole afternoon when she is exhausted. Expect to come back several times.
Ask one question, then stop talking
Silence after a hard question is not a signal to move on. Answers to these usually start slowly and arrive in pieces.
Don't save the important things
Lucid stretches can shorten quickly. If something needs saying, say it on an ordinary day rather than waiting for the right one.
Practical matters
- Ask whether her wishes about treatment are written down, and where the document is kept.
- Ask who else has been told: a doctor, a lawyer, a sibling.
- Write instructions in her words and read them back to check you have them right.
- If she names something she wants a particular person to have, tell the family while she is alive.
- Keep the practical questions in a different conversation from the personal ones where you can.
Looking after yourself
You don't have to hold it together
Crying in front of her is not a failure of care. Leaving the room whenever something is difficult is harder on her than tears are.
Accept an unfinished conversation
Very few families get to say everything. What was said counts for more than what was missed.
Ask someone else to be there for part of it
A sibling or a nurse in the house means you are not the only person carrying what was said.