Letters and videos for hospice patients: leaving words for family

Updated 2026-10-28 · Fond Farewell guides

If you're in hospice or palliative care, or helping someone who is, leaving words for the family can feel both urgent and exhausting. It doesn't have to be long or perfect. A few sentences per person, written, dictated or recorded in short sessions, is enough.

Start small

• Make a list of names first. Family, close friends, and the people who might hear the news late: old colleagues, faraway friends, a mentor.
• One person per session. Ten minutes on a good day is plenty.
• Three sentences each: what they mean to you, one memory, one wish for them.

When writing is hard

Fatigue, pain, medication and weak hands all make writing difficult. Some alternatives:

• Dictate. Speak to a family member, nurse, volunteer or your phone's dictation, then read it back and adjust.
• Record a short video or voice memo instead. Your voice is what many families say they miss most. Lie back on pillows, ask someone to hold the phone, and just talk.
• Answer questions. Let someone you trust ask a few prompts (below) and capture your answers.
• Ask the hospice team. Social workers, chaplains and volunteers often help with legacy projects such as letters, recordings and memory books.

Prompts that help

• What do I want you to know about how I feel about you?
• What's a memory of us I keep coming back to?
• What am I proud of you for?
• What do I hope for you in the years ahead?
• Is there anything I want to say sorry for, or thank you for?
• What would I like you to do when you miss me?

Researchers in palliative care have studied a structured version of this, called dignity therapy, in which patients answer questions like these and the answers are edited into a document for their family.

For family members helping

• Offer, don't push. Some people want to do this; some don't, and that's okay.
• Keep their words, not yours. Tidy spelling, but leave their phrasing and humour.
• Read it back before you call it done, so they can change anything.
• Write down where everything is kept and who each piece is for.
• Look after yourself. Taking down someone's last words is tender, heavy work.

Timing: now, or after?

Some people share letters while they're alive and watch them being read. Others want their words to arrive later. Both are right. If you want them delivered afterwards, decide who will hand them out or use a tool that does it: in Fond Farewell, a trusted contact reports the death and each person receives their note and video by email 48 hours later.

Thinking of people outside the family

Fond Farewell exists because of this gap. Its founder's father could no longer speak or write in his final days, and after he died the family struggled to reach all his longtime friends and colleagues (her story). A short note to those wider circles takes a weight off the people closest to you.

Related: what to write in a farewell letter · recording a legacy video · pre-planning a funeral