Open Writing

I don’t know whether, like me, you entertain the hope that your last words in mortality will be worth recording and repeating, but some folks last words stand as models of ultimate statements that are impressive in their scope and wisdom from which survivors draw the strength to continue. However, not all such words hit so noble a mark.

I read a story many moons ago in which a man was so impressed with a witticism he overheard that he thereafter sought occasion to repeat it and impress his friends. A man had caught a bad cold and one of his friends, shaking his head, said, "Well, you never wear an overcoat," to which the ailing fellow replied, "No. I never was."

The eavesdropper doubled up with laughter, and soon thereafter he determined to fashion an occasion when he could deliver those very words in response to the anticipated chastisement from one acquaintance or another. Consequently, he went abroad in trousers and jacket without benefit of topcoat in the most foul and inclement weather to attempt to catch a cold.

He caught several colds, but none of them gave rise to the luscious feed he sought to make his witty repartee. Disappointed, but not cast down, he took to leaving off his under vestments to make himself more liable to catch something nasty when the flood was at it height and the heavens did their worst to being humanity to its knees.

He got a fair amount of sniffles, a couple of disgustingly snotty noses, and once he even caught a chill. However, none of these was sufficient to make him appear much different from the general population that also suffered from similar ailments as matters of course according to the dictates of the English weather system.

Now deep in anxiety lest his one chance to deliver the whimsical solecism should slip out of his grasp, he took to sleeping in his clothes in his bath that he filled with cold water, and when dawn broke and the thunder clouds accompanied them he walked out in his wet clothes, carefully walking at the side of the roads where puddles formed so that every vehicle that passed him sent a bow wave of brackish water over his to maintain his jeopardy and open his systems to host some deleterious infection.

To his great pleasure this system worked, and by the early days of December he was struck down in his prime by bronchitis, pneumonia, and an unspecified chest infection that sent him to his bed.

His doctor pronounced that if he had any last words he should be prepared to utter them before the week was out. That raised his spirits and he practised his phrase, "No. I never was!" expecting at any moment to be able to speak them and cause all within earshot to fall about laughing. After that, he cared little what would become of him for his life’s purpose would be fulfilled.

His opportunity came on the third day of his being bed-bound when his next door neighbour called in to see how he was faring. Recognising his opportunity, he carefully prepared the stage for his finest hour.

"I am proper poorly," he answered to his friend’s enquiry. "I’ve got this really bad chest."

"Well," said the visitor, "It’s not surprising. You never wear an overcoat."

Why what happened next happened is open to surmise. Having primed his foil, he was overcome with a fit of chuckling. Not hearty or robust because his condition precluded any spark of enthusiasm from his weakened frame. When his chortling was done, he was almost exhausted, and said in the feeblest of voices, "No. I never did!" Then, he expired.

What lesson can be gained from that tale I leave to you to decide for yourself, but it does seem that some have not regarded their last words with the gravity they deserve.

Lady Astor woke briefly during her last illness to find her family assembled about her sick couch, and asked, "Am I dying or is this my birthday?"

Anyone neglected by his or her family might ask the same question.

Horatio Nelson wasted his opportunity to provide a grateful nation with a fitting epitaph when he said either, "Kiss me, Hardy," or, "I could eat one of Bellamy’s veal pies." History fails to record whether either the kiss or the pie was delivered in time.

Others have faced their deaths with a matter-of-factness that does them credit. For example, George Bernard Shaw told his nurse, "Sister, you're trying to keep me alive as an old curiosity, but I'm done, I'm finished, I'm going to die." He did.

Dylan Thomas managed, "I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that's the record … " It was.

Actress Tallulah Bankhead called for, "Codeine ... bourbon." But it was too late for either.

Taste has played a large part in the passing of some. Lou Costello remarked, "That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted."

Humphrey Bogart’s rich humour surfaced long enough for him to say, "I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis."

Johannes Brahms departed with, "Ah, that tastes nice. Thank you."

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov declared, "I am dying. I haven't drunk champagne for a long time."

Others have believed that they cheated death. Tacitus records that Gaius Caligula having been stabbed to death by his own guards, said, "I am still alive!" His triumphalism was short lived – as was he.

With a cheerful, "Goodnight my darlings, I'll see you tomorrow," Noel Coward slipped from the world. He didn’t.

"Don't worry chief, it will be alright," said silent film idol Rudolph Valentino before abandoning the stage. It wasn’t.

H. G. Wells was another that didn’t understand the plot. To those expressing concern at his impending demise he said, "Go away. I'm all right!" He wasn’t.

General Ethan Allen was told by his doctor, "General, I fear the angels are waiting for you." Allen’s response was, "Waiting are they? Waiting are they? Well – let 'em wait." They didn’t.

Then there are those that faced death calmly and fearlessly. Perhaps their examples are worthy or emulation. From the lavish showman Florence Ziegfeld, "Curtain! Fast music! Lights! Ready for the last finale! Great! The show looks good, the show looks good!" to the terse but firm, "I am ready" of US President Woodrow Wilson there is a vast middle ground taken by others that knew of and accepted they were dying.

Karl Marx, told his housekeeper, who urged him to tell her his last words so she could write them down for posterity, "Go on, get out - last words are for fools who haven't said enough."

"It's all been very interesting," said Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

"Get my swan costume ready," said ballerina Anna Pavlova.

Artist Pietro Perugino refused to see a priest on his death bed, explaining, "I am curious to see what happens in the next world to one who dies unshriven."

"Lord help my poor soul," cried Edgar Allan Poe, as he slipped away from life.

President James K. Polk, spoke to his wife, "I love you Sarah. For all eternity, I love you."

"Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms." Said Alexander Pope.

Rabelais’ parting words were, "I owe much; I have nothing; the rest I leave to the poor."

Trotsky, suffering from having an ice pick driven into his brain, acquiesced, "I feel here that this time they have succeeded."

Although death must visit every man, some have been surprised by their own deaths. Perhaps none more so that General John Sedgewick of the Union army who was struck down in mid-sentence, saying, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist ... "

Diana, Princess of Wales, mortally wounded in an horrific motor vehicle accident, asked, "My God. What's happened?"

There are examples of ‘gallows’ humour in the last words of some executed criminals. James French, just before the switch on the electric chair in Oklahoma, joked, "How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? French fries." Almost forty years earlier George Appel made a similar joke in the chair with, "Well, gentlemen, you are about to see a baked Appel."
John Spenkelink wryly remarked as the straps were fastened, "Capital punishment: them without the capital get the punishment."

The last words of those who died by their own hands sometimes give us insights into their minds. Musician Terry Kath accidentally killed himself while playing Russian Roulette. He explained to anxious friends, "Don't worry, it's not loaded." It was.

Another accidental suicide was actor Jon Erik Hexum who put a blank-loaded pistol to his head on a TV drama set, and pulled the trigger saying, "Lets see if this will do it." It did. The strength of the charge forced a chunk of his skull into his brain, and he died six days later.

Deliberate suicide, Poetess Sarah Teasdale, took her own life when heartbroken. She wrote:

When I am dead, and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain drenched hair,
Tho you should lean above me broken hearted,
I shall not care.
For I shall have peace.
As leafey trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough.
And I shall be more silent and cold hearted
Than you are now.

Writer Virginia Woolf, left, "I feel certain that I'm going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. In addition, I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices."

Writer, Robert E. Howard, wrote:
All fled – all done, so lift me on the pyre;
The feast is over, and the lamps expire.

The importance of last words was plainly recognised by the dying Mexican revolutionary, Pancho Villa, who said, "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."

Although I have not worked out with exactness the words I want to leave as my last, they must contain expressions of comfort, love, and grief at leaving behind those I love, even those I love that do not love me; and also expressions of unconfined bliss at entering the eternal world to be reunited with the loved ones that have gone before, where I anticipate being embraced by them and by the welcoming arms of my Saviour Jesus Christ.

© 2010 – Ronnie Bray
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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