What to Say to Someone Who Is Dying, According to Hospice Workers

Sydney Mishkin’s father had Stage IV sarcoma for seven years. In the weeks before he died, she kept trying to figure out what she still hadn’t told him. She searched through their old texts and listened to his voicemails. At night, she lay awake reviewing their entire relationship, desperate to identify the words she might one day regret leaving unsaid.Eventually, she realized there weren’t any. A week before her father passed away, Mishkin told him: “There’s nothing I’ve ever wanted to say and didn’t.” He was very weak, but he managed to answer: “I could not ask for a better daughter.” Within days, he was no longer able to speak.The exchange was deeply meaningful—but also bittersweet. Mishkin worried she had said too much or made her father feel obligated to summon the energy for a profound response. “How do you sum up a lifetime of loving somebody into a sentence or two?” she says.The answer, according to people who spend their careers alongside the dying, is that you don’t have to. There are words that can bring comfort, invite honesty, and help both of you find peace. But there’s no perfect script—and your presence likely matters more than anything you manage to say.Don't wait ...