How I Met Your Mother is coming to an end, with three more episodes left to the series finale. Now, a downer of a fan theory is starting to look more feasible. Could The Mother have been dead all this time?

The Mother Is Dead theory has surprisingly been around for a while. Jason Segel told GQ that he told the show's creators he thought the mother was dead back in 2010. The theory started picking up steam again in an episode aired last year called "Time Travelers" when Ted Mosby gives a speech about his future wife. Here's a recap:
Exactly 45 days from now, you and I are going to meet. We're going to fall in love and we're going to get married, and we're going to have two kids. We're going to love them and each other so much. All that is 45 days away, but I'm here now, I guess because I want those extra 45 days with you. I want each one of them…I am always going to love you. Until the end of my days and beyond.
The show's given viewers other signs that the Mother is dead, too. In the show's 2030 scenes, the mother has never, not a once, been mentioned in the present tense.

It also seems like The Mother is not present in the future beyond the year 2024, and the last few weeks, Alyson Hannigan tweeted a picture of her script surrounded by used tissues calling it a very emotional read.

Then last night's episode, which takes place in 2024 after the pair are already married, showed Ted telling The Mother a story of Robin and Barney's wedding. The Mother remarked that of course a mother would want to be at her daughter's wedding. Ted suddenly bursts into tears, sending viewers mixed signals. Why did he cry? There didn't seem a reason for it. I tried connecting the dots, but didn't think of the theory just yet.

The Mother comforts him and tells him to stop living in his stories and move on with his life.

For now, all signs are pointing to her death, though hopefully, it won't end that way. That's some really sad shit ending to pull on viewers. Though it would probably explain why Ted took 9 years to tell his kids the story of how he met their mother.

Notebook in TV format, anyone?