Aesthetics of dying, family as a unit of care and the last vital breath in Kashi, India’s sacred city. Reflecting upon my work with families who make a pilgrimage to Kashi, this research examines audiovisual ethnography as a shared ontological approach to researching and understanding the imaginative lifeworlds family members inhabit while waiting, confronting and performing the dying process of their parent at Kashi Labh Mukti Bhawan (a local salvation home).