Last Words
I found out about a book — Words on the Threshold — which led me to an old Atlantic article about last words. A daughter started writing down all the things her father was saying at the end of his life, and the experience led her to look at “the linguistic patterns in 2,000 utterances from 181 dying people, including her father.” What do people say when they don’t have a lot of time left to speak? Who asks questions, who makes requests, who uses many words, and who uses few.
We have a rich picture of the beginnings of language, thanks to decades of scientific research with children, infants, and even babies in the womb. But if you wanted to know how language ends in the dying, there’s next to nothing to look up, only firsthand knowledge gained painfully.
It’s not as if anyone guides the dying towards their last words in the same way we guide babies to speak their first words. And it’s also not about the literal final word; it’s the final words, the last thoughts conveyed, sometimes over days. What are the most important points to get across when you have limited time?
I don’t have answers. I thought about it while reading the article; what would I say — beyond I love you to the people I love — if I only had a few hours left. And I couldn’t come up with anything. Though that’s the point: that it’s not like the movies where someone summons their most profound thoughts right before their dying breath. It’s not something we can imagine until we’re in the moment.
It makes my throat feel tight to think about it.
5 comments
Well, this entire article is going on the premise that 1) everyone is going to know they are going to die before they die, and 2) that people are cognitively with it enough when the time does come.
I guess my experience is that by the time the people I loved have been close to death, they weren’t mentally aware any longer, or they died suddenly and didn’t have the chance to speak last words/thoughts.
All I can think about is that whatever you want people you love to know, you need to be saying it now. Because life isn’t the movies, and having the chance to have a death bed confessional isn’t likely.
it definitely isn’t like the movies. Some peopel may be on their deathbed for a while and may have the time and cognitive ability to speak their mind whereas some people pass away in an instant. I would like to think that I’d have the opportunity to be surrounded by those I love most and that I’d be able to tell them everything that i could and remind them of my absolute love.
Hmm – well, in my family, we’ve had the very brief “There’s a spider” before my grandfather had a heart attack to my mom asking for a breathing treatment or my dad mumbling nursery rhymes to distract himself from what I imagine was terrible pain. Or maybe boredom – he was bedridden for several months and had no interest in anything.
I don’t really get the fascination with last words – I’m too practical to believe that many people say anything profound or even useful…unless you’re maybe a murder victim trying to name your murderer? (I may also be slightly cynical.)
Yeah I echo what the commenters above said. For a lot of people it’s definitely not like the movies. I had read that article when it came out. My dad knew he was dying but he wasn’t ready, and the last few of days he was somewhat out of it. He was asking about people he hadn’t seen in decades, asking how he could go to the bathroom (he had a catheter), etc.
By the way I had, and still have, a lot of anger about the whole Hallmark movie version of death. My father’s dying death was the first one that I really experienced closely. And I had read so many obituaries over the years where people talk about an old person surrounded by their love ones dying peacefully. Maybe that happens for some people, but that definitely didn’t happen for us and frankly it really pissed me off that there’s this expectation out there that that’s how it goes.
This is a fascinating thought: “What are the most important points to get across when you have limited time?” And how interesting there is a dearth of research on this end of life’s spectrum.
Charlotte makes a good point about the assumptions in the article. I see conception as coming from unity/wholeness into duality/separateness. And I see death as moving from separateness back into wholeness. My big question is, prior to the last breath (or heartbeat or brainwave) does the person KNOW/SENSE they are returning to unity? I would imagine that feels like coming home.