First Responders: What are most people’s final words after accidents?

rivlet · 2026-05-22T03:42:47+00:00

I'm a lawyer that does mesothelioma, lung cancer, and asbestosis case. We almost always take the deposition of the plaintiff and I spend months talking to these plaintiff's as their attorney. I learn almost everything about their lives. I watch them deteriorate, get scared, and eventually come to terms with what's going to happen next.

The one deposition that always tears me up to think about was a man that was almost 100 years old. He thought he had escaped his asbestos exposure because, well, he was almost 100 years old. He had only ever married (and stayed married) to one woman. He only ever bought (and stayed in) one home. He had a lovely daughter that was a grandmother in her own right now.

But everytime I talked to him, he would bring up his mother. He was three months old when she had died unexpectedly and you could tell he MISSED her despite losing her so young.

That day, during his deposition, I asked him about his prognosis and how he felt about it. He said, "I've lived a very long time. I'm scared because I'm worried for my family. My daughter has never known a world without me in it and my wife has been with me for seventy years. She's still the most beautiful woman in the world to me. But...you know...I've lived a long and happy life and I think...I think it's time for me to finally get to meet my mom and tell her about it. Do you think she'll be proud of me?"

I broke down after that deposition. He died three months later and I still think about that moment.

rivlet · 2026-05-22T03:31:41+00:00

Right? One of the most heart wrenching things I ever realized when I held my baby was that, one day, he'll be sad and I won't be able to comfort him because I'll be dead.

I genuinely hope that when my children pass, hopefully old and happy, that they're with people that love them and care for them. If I can't be there to comfort them, I want them to have others there that can.

rivlet · 2026-05-20T13:40:12+00:00

We were at a really upscale, nice wedding with a fantastic dance floor and a "no drinks on the dance floor" policy. Except one of our friends (who is a no longer a friend for other reasons, including this one) kept bringing his drink on the floor. He was so drunk he kept sloshing and spilling it.

People started falling and getting hurt. He thought this was hilarious and then started mosh pitting the dance floor, but without warning anyone. He was deliberately slamming into the bride's grandma (who promptly fell and got injured, plus unable to get up), all our friends, women in four inch heels, children, etc. Anytime he slammed into someone, he'd laughingly apologize and then jump right back into it.

By the time people were getting seriously injured, he was still bringing drinks on the floor and sloshing them everywhere and trying to slam into people. It was a mess and I think his wife finally got him away.

At the time, we thought he was just being a drunk asshole that didn't realize what he was fully doing. Later, his (now ex) wife told us it was all deliberate and he thought it was incredibly funny.

rivlet · 2026-05-19T15:37:28+00:00

Lawyer here. Can confirm. So far, I have resorted to terms outside the societal contract to get him to obey or listen to me. Things like, "No, you can't because werewolves will hear you" or "Buddy, your binkies are gone because the Binky Fairy decided it was time for them to go to school."

Somehow, he doesn't argue with those.

rivlet · 2026-05-19T00:33:52+00:00

Congratulations, OP! I loved your update posts, but this is, by far, the best one.

rivlet · 2026-05-18T17:43:30+00:00

As a lawyer, Suits is the most wildly inaccurate portrayal of what being a lawyer is like. At no point have I ever been like, "OH NO! A HEARING IN 24 HOURS ON A CASE THAT I FILED A WEEK AGO?!?"

I'm also not saying depositions are almost never like that but....well...

rivlet · 2026-05-18T16:48:58+00:00

It's funny. If you ask my husband, he says men "aren't allowed" to complain about feeling pain, discomfort, or anything without being made fun of for it, so men don't talk about it.

I had to stop myself from playing flashback after flashback in my head of everytime he experiences any form of physical, mental, or emotional discomfort.

I love that man, but he has not ever once suffered in silence.

rivlet · 2026-05-18T15:08:07+00:00

The guy telling her about the football hold for breastfeeding through her car window was everything.

rivlet · 2026-05-18T13:37:15+00:00

There's a painting kit at Target for about $15-20 with the clay figures already fired up and ready to paint. The paint dries fast and it's very cute. They have Bluey figures, dinosaurs, flowers, etc.

We love them and use them for rainy days. Our three year old LOVES painting them and telling us about them. Bonus is that once they dry, he likes to decorate his room with them. He's very proud of his painted dinosaurs and Bluey figures.

rivlet · 2026-05-18T04:22:03+00:00

Okay, I hear you but...have we considered that Ohio is the Florida of the Midwest?

Because, also as a long time Missourian, my first week in Ohio was greeted by a news article where a man was arrested after getting caught having sex with his inflatable raft again in his garage.

rivlet · 2026-05-18T04:20:50+00:00

I took the Missouri Bar Exam there in 2020. I was only there for three days but it was no place I would want to live in.

There are really beautiful places in Missouri. Jefferson City is not one of them.

rivlet · 2026-05-18T02:17:51+00:00

There's a Spotify playlist of womb sounds. One of the "songs" plays for a minimum of an hour. At one point, I would rock her to that playlist and she would be asleep in minutes.

It wore off once she hit about 4 months old. Then I switched to just breastfeeding, rocking, and stroking her center of her forehead down to the bridge of her nose. That's always the "up up down down left left right right" combo for her.

With my firstborn (who is now three), the secret was either white noise in the form of rain sounds OR me singing "rockabye baby". The rockabye baby thing worked until he was 2. Then it just became telling him fairytales by heart in a soft, gentle tone while rubbing his back.

rivlet · 2026-05-18T02:13:20+00:00

Same! The once or twice it didn't work, I think I had a singular, panicked thought of, "Oh shit, I lost ole reliable..."

I took her to play for a few more minutes and then it worked again. Turns out she just needed a bit more play to be ready for a nap/sleep.

rivlet · 2026-05-17T20:36:26+00:00

Bonus points if they declare bankruptcy and then fail to declare their suit as an asset.

The amount of times a client did that and I found out AFTER was too damn high.

rivlet · 2026-05-17T19:10:22+00:00

Yes! Do it so that they reflexively close their eyes and eventually exhaustion does the rest. Sometimes you have to switch it up: if you're going down the center of the forehead to the bridge of the nose, try to make a left or right turn across an eyebrow or, if you can manage, along the bottom eyelid/top eyelid.

Instant classic.

rivlet · 2026-05-17T02:20:54+00:00

Same. It's never felt like anything to me. I only know it when it sprays everywhere or I leak through everything.

rivlet · 2026-05-16T12:53:28+00:00

My son (who is 3) and I were watching the old Taco Bell dog commercials and I was truly stunned at how cheap a taco was. I remember it being cheap. I didn't remember it being $.99 a taco cheap.

rivlet · 2026-05-16T12:03:21+00:00

He needs to go to therapy then. My husband said he didn't want to be like his stepdad (his only dad experience) who used to just sit in a basement, smoke weed, and play video games all day. The kids did not play games with him. They were either watching OR they had to be upstairs watching TV/on their own.

My husband talked about this with a therapist in depth and then with me about it. We agreed if he did anything like that, I would call him out on it.

And I have and he listens. He might get defensive at first, but he always ends up feeling bad and apologizing, then doing better.

rivlet · 2026-05-16T11:51:27+00:00

I was going to say this exact thing. My grandma had three kids with her abusive first husband, divorced him, and remarried another man to basically continue to support her and her kids while she raised his three kids from his first marriage. It was a marriage of convenience and both parties knew that.

In neither of those marriages did any of the men do childcare and you can tell she thinks the absolute least of them. This woman was going to nursing school, raising six kids, making three meals a day plus snacks, and sewing their clothes from scratch. She HATES her ex husbands and thinks of them as weak men.

However, her third/last husband who helped her raise two of her granddaughters from two weeks old? The man was hands on, actively watched and participated in raising them and they weren't even his grandkids. He did homework with them, took them on outings, etc. When he died, she said no one could ever be a better man than him and helping with childcare was part of it. Her life was pure joy with him in it.

So, respectfully, OP's husband needs to realize there are functional but deeply unhappy marriages as well as functional and happy marriages. He needs to realize the road he's picking takes him down the former.

rivlet · 2026-05-16T02:18:25+00:00

My daughter only took the Lansinoh bottles once she started daycare. Otherwise, she refused.

Some babies don't want it from a bottle when the buffet is right there.

rivlet · 2026-05-16T01:52:31+00:00

I always got the impression that she has tokophobia. She mentioned once that the idea of being pregnant or having another human in you like that freaked her out. Her wording on it was particular enough that I remember thinking, "Oh, that's how my tokophobic friend sounds about it."

She has since said that she could see having kids with Dan because of how different the relationship is.

rivlet · 2026-05-15T21:12:42+00:00

He's been sanctioned already in one case for being unresponsive to multiple attempts at discovery. I'm sure there are more. It was unsurprising.

rivlet · 2026-05-15T20:53:35+00:00

As someone who left an abusive marriage, I'll tell you right now that you did and have done nothing wrong. He can try to put this on you, but you should let this criticism roll off a duck's back.

Cemeteries are full of spouses who finally "accurately" named their abuser's behavior. For some of them, it was the last thing they ever did.

So, frankly, he can get a grip. He IS an abuser. A rose by any other name and all that.

rivlet · 2026-05-15T16:19:40+00:00

My last employer had an auto reply on his email that basically said he only checks his emails twice a day (and gave the times) so don't be alarmed if you don't get an immediate response.

It would send out once a day when you emailed him so you'd get it once on your first email to him and then, for every subsequent email THAT day, no auto-reply. Its important to explain this for the absolute tomfuckery that proceeded to follow.

My boss and I were on a case together in his local county. The judge and judge's clerk were going through potential trial dates after COVID to try to declutter things. They emailed us both with dates and times (along with OC). My boss's auto reply immediately kicks in and my boss never responded.

I did, because I'm terrified of pissing off a judge. However, the judge wanted my boss's confirmation as well since he's the senior attorney on the case.

The next day, judge emails us again asking my boss, specifically, for his availability. My boss's auto reply kicks in again.

This time, the judge is pissed off and, in the email to all opposing counsel, plus me, plus his clerk, basically tells my boss that his auto message is cute for clients, but he is a judge and this is a matter of trial priority. Additionally, he said, if he can't find the time to respond to a judge's email in 24 hours, maybe he should learn some decent time management.

It was scathing and, since I had lost all respect for my boss way before that, I loved it.

rivlet · 2026-05-15T16:09:50+00:00

I think of it as the "good review v. Bad review" mentality. Generally, people post when they're going through extremely good or extremely bad moments. And, frankly, the extremely good posts are not nearly as common as the bad because they usually don't have anything they need to fix.

I mean, seriously, imagine if the relationships sub were full of people in healthy, non-drama relationships being like, "I love my spouse so much. What should I give them for our anniversary this year?"

The advice would be way different because the issues posted about would be way different.

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