‘I don’t
write fiction, I write lies about the truth.’
About last
words
These are
not my last words, they may very well not even be the last words I will write
about last words. But then again, who knows, it really seems like most people
just pop off or get rubbed out in a willy-nilly fashion with barely anytime to
blow a kiss or squeak an outraged farewell.
At my age
the thought of death colors my thinking – everything I say out loud or in
writing has to be both pithy and profound, though perhaps a pre-post life copy
editor could provide the appropriate corrections – ‘What he meant to say by
that was…’ Perhaps hell begins by someone formally educated, yet clueless,
correcting you with a verbal boot as your ass flies out the doorway between the
known and the unknown, fingernails clawing for a chance at rebuttal.
My last words have been left everywhere— sometimes in things said,
sometimes in words written. Last words are what you find in retrospect when
putting the puzzle back together – people who know and love you will search
them out by looking inward to their relationship with you to find out what they
think you might have said, and they try to find the words and actions that
support what they think you might have meant by them. Even in goodbyes, people
see what they want to see and usually it’s themselves.
It’s like conspiracy’s theories found on the internet, only loving
instead of toxic, but maybe toxic too.
An old girlfriend once told me after a lengthy unexplained
absence, “If you had wanted to find me, you would of.” She was right, she was
always right, though I still miss her and morphine and smoking in about the
same way and same amount.
I was driving mid-morning from San Jose to Newman to see my
daughter and grandsons yesterday – the sun was apoplectic orange and the air a
smoky burnt flavor, with just a tangy sweetness of meat around the edges, I
thought of last words.
(I also thought of lost words, but that was different and not
really germane to this essay, but I thought you should know that there were
connections that I considered including -- obvious connections.)
Before I left San Jose, I had a premonition that this would be my
last trip. To be fair, this was the same premonition I’ve had a hundred times
before. I’d like to tell you that this one was different, but it wasn’t – just
a plain old regular one – enough for a short note left next to my computer,
“Love you, and thanks for all the fish.” I signed it, Mike.
I also penned an XO next to the grocery shopping list on the way out
the door. I didn’t sign this because then it would make it real and I might
have to explain myself later in an embarrassing way, and because it was a god
damned grocery list.
In the past, I’ve left ear cleaning sticks next to the front door,
cryptic notes in my back pack --I once shoved a crumpled pack of Kool
cigarettes under some one’s windshield wiper. ‘This ‘death thing is a coming’
has happened many times and I have an obvious need to say goodbye while having
the last word at the same time – but not the need to be understood in any
rational way.
I’m tempted to just start a running list of last words, maybe with
an excel worksheet to organize it, or perhaps just a cliff notes summary of my
last word lists. The problem is: Just as Oklahoma adding another state flower
to its official state flower made them have no state flower, having many last
words means having no last words, just a bunch of words with a theme, which is
different.
So, as I look around, my last words are everywhere, just pick some
like in a top ten list or a variable jumbles in a magician’s hat. All I really
know is that I’m one of the luckiest men who has ever lived. I have loved and
lost, been in pain and fixed, and very little of it was me making the right
decision or doing the right thing. I can walk, have hair and complete long
sentences – I’m way ahead of the game and at last I know it.
For the record, my last words will be, “Thank you.”
