A time for last words will come for us all. Some, will be treasured by families as precious legacies. Some, will be lost, muttered in dreams or spoken to an empty room. A very few will become Famous Last Words. Why is it we seek out these words? Perhaps we are looking for the perfect ending, a coda, summing up life in a neat little bundle. We imagine last words to be a person’s most honest statement of self, a solution to any residual puzzle, stripped of any artifice. Whether witty, noble, or tragically reflective of stubborn ego, these most personal haikus stand as testimony to our collective humanity.
Why is our attention drawn to certain Last Words and not others? Of course, we have a vested interest in the Last Words of those we have loved. There is, I suppose, a gossipy curiosity about how the Rich and Famous die and perhaps we quietly revel in the fact that They, like us, are mortal. In reading Last Words, I also realize that some Words resonate more deeply within myself. It is not so much who spoke the Words, although that too is entertaining and instructive, but my own connection with that aspect of my self that might have spoken those Words. In Noel Coward’s words, “Goodnight my darlings, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I recognize my own hope that in fact there will be a tomorrow and we will be together again (and a fear that this might not be so). Winston Churchill said, “I’m so bored with it all.” Indeed, boredom is a great curse of aging, illness, and dying. While a sad note from such a dynamic man, one also hears openness to death as a release from suffering. I can relate to that. “I’ve spent a lot of time searching through the bible, looking for loopholes.” – W.C. Fields. Amen! I chuckle in fond memory of Fields - hope he found some for me… . . Queen Elizabeth, so regal, expressed a most common sentiment, “All my possessions for a moment of time.” The father in me sympathizes with King George V, who asked, “How is the empire,” even on his deathbed. Will I ever be able to let go of all my responsibilities? When Goethe said, “More light,” was he trying to see better this world, or was he seeking a light beyond? We are all condemned by our mortality and none of us are completely innocent. Am I forgiven for empathizing with Neville Heath, whose last words prior to execution, when offered a drink, were, “Make mine a double?” Hegel said, “Only one man understood me and he didn’t understand me.” I could have said that! But would you have understood this statement of arrogant ego and loneliness? I admire Hokusai, the great Japanese painter and print-artist for stating, “If heaven had granted me five more years, I could have become a real painter” and am reminded that I too face inevitable limitations in my progress along the way. Florence Nightingale inspires with her words, “Too kind, too kind.” I hope I can find such kindness in myself. I’m afraid I’m more likely to say, as Lytton Strachey did, “If this is dying, I don’t think much of it,” or “Either that wallpaper goes or I do,” as did Oscar Wilde.
Perhaps my favorite Last Words are those of Charlie Chaplin (not really, but close enough), in the final scene of his final movie, Limelight. Just before he goes on stage for his last comic performance, he tells his companion, played by Buster Keaton, “We are all amateurs.” Isn’t that so! The words of a Master.
I don’t know what my last words will be. I hope they are not, “oh s**t” before some terrible accident. At some level I’d like them to be profound or at least not horribly embarrassing. (Residual pride in me, I suppose.) Perhaps something like, “Tag, you’re it...” What do you imagine you might say?
At the KARA conference referenced on the prior blog I shared the famous last words above and offered a poem I wrote, which follows below:
Famous Last Words
One last chance.
To speak a word of wisdom,
To crack a final joke.
Knock-knock
Who's there?
Rosebud.
Whose Rosebud?
A child’s sleigh lies covered in drifts of memory.
Snow falls cold and silent.
Now ancient metaphor, lost on the ears of youth.
Who still listen…
Grasping…
For some hidden meaning, some secret
Something
Which might make sense of this unbecoming business of unbecoming.