"Pardon me. I didn't do it on purpose."
Those are allegedly the last words spoken by Marie Antoinette, queen of France, after stepping on the foot of her executioner on her way to the guillotine. Last words are important to many Americans, it seems. In a recent essay by hospice chaplain Kerry Egan on the PBS Newshour, Egan says "people are enormously curious about what people who are actively dying talk about."
Egan also points out that while many people expect to die a "Hollywood death," the real thing is almost always much different. Truth is, none of us knows our precise expiration date. Rather that spending time crafting some clever deathbed utterance, it makes more sense to say anything you have to say now when, presumably, you're less stressed.
Sounds like good advice to me. In fact, in my recent career as a personal historian, I encouraged people to draft their own legacy letters (some call them ethical wills, but that sounds a little stuffy to me.) You can find several articles on the subject by searching this blog for either term, or you can find one here.
It's really a cliché to say live every day as if it's your last, but most clichés have their roots in reality and this one passes that test. If you're one of those people who are interested in famous last words, you can click here and here.
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.
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