Last words

The last words of a person are his “exit lines” in this world when death, the inevitable is impending. A person’s body and soul can be bolting in struggle upon sensing the final ticking seconds of such looming extinction. Death may come in so many forms but these last words are always expressed in “extremis” especially when recovery is already regarded as nil and hopeless. In that dreary sunset of life, those closest can only sigh but should take a good grip of the very precious parting words, in order to make them a living memory of the passing loved one.

To recall, the whole world mourned for the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005. His final words were uttered in his native tongue. He said: “Let me go to the house of the Father.” Six hours later, the well-loved pope died. The dying St. Louis or Louis IX, King of France (in 1270) similarly expressed: “I will enter now into the house of the Lord”. However, Vincent Van Gogh, an artist who committed suicide in 1890 had mentioned home in a different fashion. His final words were: “I want to go home. Don't weep. What I have done was best for all of us. No use. I shall never get rid of this depression”.

In his book: Famous Last Words, Jonathon Green was able to compile 2,300 entries of deathbed parting words from the time of Confucius, Mohammed, Buddha, or Archimedes up to 1979. I took the pain of reading each of these farewells of famous dead people, the kings, presidents, saints, murderers, lawyers, poets, philosophers, and even magicians. Harry Houdini who died in 1926 being the greatest escapologist of his time was quoted to have said just before he died: “I am tired of fighting. I guess this thing is going to get me”. One thing he failed to escape thus was death. Green mentioned at the very least two Filipinos in that book, namely: Manuel Quezon and Jose P. Rizal.

May I highlight some of these farewells just in time for the Season of Lent which all Christians are bound to observe. The dying Rene Descartes, a French mathematician and philosopher who died in 1650 said: “My soul, thou has long been held captive. The hour has come for thee to quit thy prison, to leave the trammels of this body. Then to this separation with joy and courage!”

John Locke, a Philosopher expressed such final words: “Oh, the depths of the riches and the goodness of the knowledge of God”; Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, “May God never forsake me”; Ludwig van Beethoven a composer who had lost his sense of hearing, “I will hear in heaven!”; or Edgar Allan Poe, a famous American writer, “Lord help my poor soul”.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French political theorist who died in 1778 muttered these last words: “See the sun, whose smiling face calls me, see that immeasurable light. There is God! Yes, God Himself, who is opening His arms and inviting me to taste at last that eternal and unchanging joy that I had so long desired”.

It was said, when Sir Walter Scott, a great novelist, lawyer and one of the most prominent figures in English romanticism was dying, he sat alone in the warm sunlight that streamed through his library window. A friend entered. "Read to me,"' Sir Walter sighed heavily. "Gladly," his friend responded. "What will it be, Sir Walter? What book shall I read?" Sir Walter looked up. "What book? Need you ask? There's only one book, the book, the BIBLE!"

Daniel Webster who was also then a leading lawyer in his country was quoted to have said moments before his final hour: “I have read the Bible through many times and now make it a practice to read it through once every year. It is a book of all others for lawyers as well as divines; and I pity the man who cannot find in it a rich supply of thought and of rules of conduct”.

Let us therefore review those famous last words found in the Bible uttered on the cross by no less than the God of Sir Walter Scott and Daniel Webster, and the rest of us, the dying Jesus of Nazareth who died in 33 A.D.

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise, then Jesus said to his mother: "Woman, this is your son". Then He said to the disciple: "This is your mother." "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", then He moaned, "I thirst". When Jesus had received the wine, he said with that voice so weak, "It is finished"; and he bowed his head and handed over the spirit. Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit".