Questions to ask someone who is dying

20 questions to ask someone who is dying about what they want remembered

These are the questions people most regret not asking. They are also the ones the person most wants to be asked, if it is done with care. Ask "what do you want people to know?" first and "what would you rather leave out?" second. Everything else follows from those two.

How to use this list. Ask by voice and record it. One or two questions a visit is plenty; the follow-up ("Who else was there?" "What did she say?" "What happened the day after?") matters more than the next question. The 7 marked tender come last: ask them once, late, in person, with "or would you rather leave that?" in the question.

1. Is there something you've never told anyone that you would like someone to know?tenderAsk only once, late, and with the door open: "or would you rather leave that?"
2. What would you like your grandchildren to know about you that they can't see from here?
3. What is a thing you would hate to see written in a book about you?Ask it straight. It sets the rules for everything else and makes people braver, not shyer.
4. Who should get the things that matter to you, and why that person?tender
5. How would you like to be remembered, in one sentence?
6. What do you want to say to the people who will read this?
7. What song do you want played at the end, and what should people do while it plays?tender
8. Is there a letter, a photograph or a paper you kept hidden? Where is it now?tenderA hidden object is a story with a location.
9. Who knows the real story, if anyone? Would you want them asked?tender
10. Is there a thing you would like told after you are gone, but not before? Who should hear it first?tender
11. What did you most want to give your children that you never had?
12. Is there an object in your house that you would run back in for? What's its story?
13. What do you know now that you wish someone had told you at twenty-five?
14. What are you proudest of, that nobody would guess?
15. If your life were a film, where would it start?Their answer tells you where the book starts too.
16. What do you think happens after? Has that answer changed?tender
17. Was there a recipe written down anywhere, or was it all in someone's head? Whose head?A recipe is an object with a story and an owner. Ask where it is now.
18. What did you build, fix or plant at a house that is still there, as far as you know?
19. Is there a friend you have never thanked properly? What for?
20. What did you make, fix, sell or look after that is still out there somewhere?Work that outlasts the worker is the chapter the family never thought to ask for.

What these questions are for

A good book about a person needs more than facts. It needs the person on the page: how they talked, what they wanted, what they did when it mattered, the story that shows them. These questions cover 9 of the things a writer needs about someone who is dying: wants, fears and wounds, what they want said, objects, places, food, music, loves and tastes, key relationships, the story that shows them, beliefs and values, how others saw them, habits, routines and work.

More questions to ask someone who is dying

• All questions to ask someone who is dying
• Questions to ask someone who is dying about their childhood
• Questions to ask someone who is dying about family history
• Questions to ask someone who is dying about love and marriage
• Questions to ask someone who is dying about their work
• Questions to ask someone who is dying about faith and beliefs
• Questions to ask someone who is dying about hard times
• Questions to ask someone who is dying for their advice
• Questions to ask someone who is dying that go deep

Or see questions for everyone else, and how to interview a parent about their life.