“For the last 4 years, I’ve worked summers and weekends at a nursing home in my home town. Two years ago, we had a married couple in their 90s (He was 95, she was 96). I always found them adorable. They spent their entire days together, and it was clear to me from the first day I met them just how much they cared for and depended on one another (she always waited for him at the table so they could have breakfast together, and she made sure the staff made his coffee the way he liked it). They slept in separate rooms because he was suffering from (relatively mild) dementia and would occasionally get up during the night, confused, which disturbed her sleep. Yet they would always end the day sitting in her room, drinking tea and talking before we helped him to his room to go to sleep.
A few months after celebrating their 70-year anniversary, the husband died. It wasn’t really unexpected, as he had been sick for a few weeks, and the nurses knew he wouldn’t recover. Two weeks later, his wife got weaker, and she mostly stayed in her bed. Now, she was not demented at all. At times, she seemed brighter than me, which is why something that happened while she was on her deathbed really creeped me out.
I was in her room helping her adjust her blankets, near the end of my shift (around 10 pm). She had been sleeping before I came in to check on her, so the room was dark. She had complained about being cold, so I closed and locked the window. As usual, we were making small talk, when suddenly, she went silent, looked towards the door and said ‘John?’ (her husband’s name).
‘John, is that you? No, John, wait.’
Then the door to her room slammed shut at tremendous force. I had just closed her window, and all doors in the nursing home automatically closes and locks at 8 pm. There’s no way it was the wind. I only worked with four other people that night, all of whom were in the staff room at the time. All other patients who might be able to walk around on their own were sleeping. There was literally no one nearby.
She barely seemed to notice, not even jumping from the loud noise the door made, and told me, ‘It’s ok, you can leave now. Good night!’
She died two days later, in her sleep. I barely ever tell anyone about this, because I never thought anyone would believe me. And because to this day, I don’t understand what happened, and it creeps me out.”