Woman jokingly texts Mum ‘did you make it home alive?’ Before horrifying realisation

A woman’s joke text to her mum turned out to be a tragic omen of her death.

Maureen Branigan, 30, sent a sarcastic text to her mum Debbie, 52, after spending the day together in Philadelphia. The pair had been grocery shopping, picking up the ingredients needed for a hearty beef stew.

After finishing their dinner, Maureen – an only child- stayed in front of the TV while Debbie decided to drive home as a snowstorm was predicted to barrel through the city. Debbie’s home was just three blocks away from her daughter’s, so expected she had more than enough time to get back.

Debbie – who suffered from kidney disease and type 2 diabetes – often made comments about how she could easily slip over and break her neck on the slippery snowfall. Remembering this, Maureen decided to check in on her mum, asking: “Did u make it home alive lol?” [sic].

Maureen didn’t hear back, but was not initally alarmed as her mum – who she saw daily – would sometimes fall asleep and FaceTime her the following morning, she told PEOPLE.

A few hours later, her husband was out walking the dog when he realised Maureen’s mum was still sitting in her car. And an ambulance was close by.

“Immediately, I called my dad, who was at home. I told him he had to get here, and fast,” she told PEOPLE. “At this point, we still had no idea what was going on. The medics couldn’t tell us anything and we were stuck in limbo. Once my dad ran over, I think reality started to set in.

“Since the car was still parked out front, we hopped in it and followed the ambulance to the hospital, which was just a three-minute drive

We didn’t speak much during that car ride. Looking back, I think we both knew what truth we were about to walk into,” she said.

A short while later, the family received the devastating news that Debbie had suffered a cardiac arrest and died.

Maureen said that “never in my wildest imagination would I have thought it [the text] would result in her dying”. She added: “Honestly, it wasn’t the first time I had texted her something along those lines, and it wasn’t the first time she had texted me like that, either. We morbidly joked pretty often.

I’m an only child, so we were absolute best friends. Anyone who knows us could tell you we were together every single day. My mom embodied everything soft and strong simultaneously.”

Maureen shared her story several years on from Debbie’s tragic passing as part of a TikTok trend where people share details about their final communications.


“Without a doubt, the “are u alive lol” text captured a glimpse of our sense of humour,” she said. “A few people in my life have even agreed – it makes sense that this was the last text I decided to send her.”