LAST WORDS
Mama. Dada. Baba. No.
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I arrived to a quiet room bathed in the softness of his breathing and rays of golden light.
My sleepless hours anticipated this morning—me, folded into the bend of his long arm, enveloped in the silence of his body’s healing force.
Instead, it was an unnatural breathing that permeated my arrival, steadied and insistent as if doing some divine work. I entered the room quietly, joining the sunlight in its reverence as it danced across his bed.
In a last act of will that was so much a reflection of his determination and strength, he lifted his hand to my face, those long fingers reading my tears like Braille. And then the last words came:
I have loved many in my lifetime. But this. This one. I have loved most of all.
We are so enraptured by the first words—
Mama. Hi. Dada. Bye.
But what of the last words we whisper as we prepare our ascent?
I have been present in this sacred moment. First, with my Mama. My daddy leaving next.
What strikes me is the gravity of the opportunity. That is, to leave those we love with something transformative just before we depart.
Those last moments. They are not about us at all. How ‘other’ this sounds when every detail of our departure ritualistically spotlights us.
I will be with my Creator in the seconds that follow. But those I love will be left with a permeating grief. What I give [not take] in these allusive hours of birthing my spirit will follow with them just as shadow chases feet.
This velum, between our world and the next, so thin it slid like spun liquid between Daddy’s forefinger and thumb. I felt it glide across my cheek that early morning. His words ushering in the intention of a loving, giving God.
I have seen that slice of heaven, the one both Mama and Daddy slipped right through. And I am fixed on orchestrating this holy adventure for the ones who surround my bed.
I wonder how many glimpses of Heaven we miss in our ordinary days—
How anger, fear, anxiety creates this imaginary land of disenchantment inside our heads:
What goes in is likely coming out.
Is your disposition one that would organically speak words of goodness, softness, affirmation, even prophetic wisdom at the end?
Last words. Are they nonchalant noises tucked into our hurry-ups or thought-through chapters written down?
Like babies making sentences of rudementary utterances, “Mine” and “No,” our last words are constantly, perpetually working their way out.
What will you leave behind that can change a mind, heal a heart, direct a path?
The simple, loving, abiding phrases become prescient when we have passed,
flowing like a river through all the days we are missed,
becoming not simply words strung one after the other,
but legacies of seedlings planted in darkest soil.
Then, if we have done it well, our last words [“I have loved this one with all my heart],
become the truth of how our children love their children…and the next…and the next.
NOTES:
Last words. I could write a book on the subject. In fact, I just might.
If your words were part of it, what do you imagine you would say?
In case you are feeling that this is a maudlin topic, or that this has something to do with this season of my life, I will clarify that I’ve been considering this subject, deeply, since that morning my daddy laid his breathtaking hand on my cheek.
Here’s the most beautiful part—the hand you see in the image is my daddy’s, holding the cheek of my eldest son. This legacy. Until I imagined what photo to use for this entry, the extraordinary message of generational gifting never crossed my mind. Yet, here my daddy is with his grandson, seventy years before my own sweet send-off moment with him.
His touch, coupled with his voice speaking words of loving authority over the two of us. It reminds me so much of the Father I will meet in the next life.
These moments. Clock the hour, clock the time. They are prophetic, orchestrated by a Force far greater than our best intentions: When we act on those best intentions we collide with the Spirit that is within.