HIMYM’s Tracy Was Always Destined to Die at the End, and Here’s Why 

How I Met Your Mother ended almost a decade ago, and yet the show’s finale is still a hot topic of debate among fans.

Ted Mosby has spent nine seasons telling his kids how he met their mother, only to have us learn that she died at the end. Fans have been outraged by the writers’ creative decision for years, and the finale is one of the most hated episodes on television.

However, Tracy was always meant to be dead by the time Ted started telling his story. If you have been paying attention to the show, you would know that. Here are six times How I Met Your Mother has given us clues about what is coming.

6. The Tombstone

In season 7, Marshall comes to Minnesota to visit his father’s grave and set up the tailgate there. Once he is at the gravesite along with his brothers, the viewers can notice a gravestone next to Marvin’s that reads “Mother.”

Tombstones usually have full names that may be accompanied by “mother,” “wife,” or something similar. This gravestone doesn’t have a full name engraved, so it must’ve served as a clue to Tracy’s upcoming death.

5. The Book

The creators of the show start hinting at the mother’s passing as early as season 1. When Ted visits Love Solutions, he is matched with his “perfect woman,” whose favorite book is Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez.

The book follows two people in love who grow apart for decades and then reunite after one person’s spouse dies, which is basically the situation with Ted, Tracy, and Robin. Ted is reading that same book just moments before he meets Tracy at the Farhampton train station in season 9.

4. The Song

The Farhampton train station actually plays a big role in Ted and Tracy’s love story. In season 8, more and more flashforwards are shown. In one of them, we finally get our first glimpse of Tracy as she gets out of a cab and stands on the platform.

At the same time, Ted is sitting just a few feet away from her, and the song The Funeral by Band of Horses is playing. A dark reference indeed.

3. The Story

Future Ted has been giving us clues from the start. He has been recounting the events of his past for nine seasons, and he has always referred to the mother in the past tense.

Plus, Tracy never appears in any of the flashforwards with Ted, Lily, and Marshall. If the character was alive in the future, the creators could’ve easily shown her presence without revealing her identity.

2. The 45 Days

In season 8, there is an episode where future Ted and future Barney try to convince Ted to go to Robots Versus Wrestlers. Ted later realizes that this incident happened exactly 45 days before he met Tracy, and he tells the kids that if he could turn back time, he would have run to their mother’s apartment, met her, and spent those extra 45 days with her.

The whole scene is so devastating that we immediately understand that Tracy is doomed to die, and that’s why her and Ted’s time together is cut short. Bonus point: a fitting soundtrack, If You See Her, Say Hello by Bob Dylan, is playing during that scene.

1. The Line

In the season 9 episode, Vesuvius, Ted and Tracy come back to the Farhampton Inn for their anniversary in 2024. Ted starts telling his wife about how Robin’s mom didn’t plan on coming to her wedding, but ended up attending anyway.

Tracy comments, “What mother is going to miss her daughter’s wedding?” – and this hits right where it hurts, leaving Ted in tears. After that episode, there is no other option for Tracy’s future – she is destined to become the mother who misses her daughter’s wedding, but for a different reason altogether.

Fans may hate on How I Met Your Mother’s finale, but things ended the way they were supposed to.