The author explores final conversations from survivors' perspectives using a communication framework. Utilizing retrospective interviews, 55 people discussed their final conversations with a loved one who has since died. As a way to understand the survivors' end-of-life experiences, the author identified five types of messages that appear to be important for survivors and that satisfied numerous relational functions. The primary messages were love, identity, religion/spirituality, routine/everyday content, and difficult relationship issues. The functions that appear to be central to each of these messages (e.g., the confirmation of love, altering and bolstering of identity, validation of religious/spiritual beliefs, maintenance of the relationship, and stepping towards reconciliation) shed light on the value that each of the messages had for survivors.

People often feel awkward and ill at ease when faced with the opportunity for communication at the end of life, thus the overall theme for the articles in this special issue is the creation of more awareness and knowledge regarding the depth, breadth, and importance of current research exploring family communication at the end of life. This introductory essay attempts to accomplish the following: (1) discuss the importance of talk regarding death; (2) highlight the formative role of family interactions on the death and dying process; and (3) outline the articles in this special issue. Scholars contributing to this special issue on “Family Communication at the End of Life” have provided evidence that communication is important between and for terminally ill individuals, family members, and healthcare/palliative care specialists. Overall, research exploring communication at the end of life is especially relevant because every person experiences the death and loss of loved ones, and ultimately faces the reality of their own death.

This article reports on the findings from a project exploring final conversations (FCs). The FC project examines communication with the terminally ill from the often-overlooked survivor's perspective (N = 30). The researcher focuses purposely on one major theme discovered in the FC interviews, that of messages shared regarding religious faith or spirituality. Messages pertaining to religious faith or spirituality were identified in 26 of the 30 FC interviews. The results revealed that validation-comfort and validation-community were the dominant themes in FC. Further, when framed as memorable messages, these FC excerpts revealed three "rules of conduct" relating to the following: (a) how to cope with life's challenges after a loved one is gone, (b) how to be involved in the death and dying process, and (c) how to enact or live your religion or spirituality. Implications for health communication theory and research, as well as comforting literature, are discussed.

Final conversations (FCs) are defined as the communicative interactions, both verbal and nonverbal, that occur between terminally ill patients and relational partners. In this study, the "Final Conversations Scale" was developed and tested. A total of 152 participants that had engaged in final conversations with individuals that were terminally ill completed the newly developed instrument. Factor analysis produced a five-factor structure, including: messages of spirituality/religion; expressions of love; proactive difficult relationship talk; everyday communication; and talk about illness/death. Participants' perceptions of the relational closeness and difficulty with the deceased significantly influenced the individuals' recalled frequency of FCs messages. Practical and scholarly implications focus on the needs of the family members regarding their communication with terminally ill individuals, as well as directions for future research with the FCs Scale.

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