My Last Words

last night after i came home, which was promptly at 11:35PM, i dove into two of my favorite guilty pleasures: Sex and the City and Oprah.


as always, Oprah had raised a very interesting, yet not unheard of, question:
if you could have just one more day with someone who has passed on, who would it be and what would you say/do with that person?

the show featured Kristine Carlson, a widow whose husband, inspirational writer Richard Carlson, passed away a year ago at the age of 45. he lived his life to the fullest and never stressed the "small stuff", as his books proclaimed. just 4 years before his untimely death, on the couple's 18th wedding anniversary, Richard gave his wife a letter that contained all of the things he has ever wanted and needed to say to her, just in case he should die before he had the chance to. the letter was long enough to be a book, so it is being released in January under the title "An Hour to Live, An Hour to Love: The True Story of the Best Gift Ever Given". (that wasn't a plug, that was just a little F.Y.I. thing in case anyone was interested in reading it.)

anyway, the whole segment just made me realize that i don't want to leave the world without giving my last words. i fear that if i don't, then it would be like i never even existed at all; that i would just be a mere faded memory and an inactive Myspace profile.

i think about my impending death a lot, actually. i've witnessed enough to know that life is unpredictable in every way possible, so death eludes no one. i'm the person who asks her friends that annoying question, "would you cry if i died?" i guess i just want to know how the world will react to my passing, obviously because once i've died, i wouldn't be able to find out. i'd like to think that i've made enough of an impact on the people around me that i will be missed everyday for the rest of someone's life. i want my death to inflict just a little bit of sorrow in my loved ones, and then i want them to smile at the things that i've said and done, and then move on with life. i want my picture to be carried around in their wallets, so that it won't always be in plain view, but is still easily-accessible upon request. i want them to write letters to me to throw into the ocean. i don't want an open casket; i don't want my last image in their minds to be my lifeless body. i want to be a song.


no one can dictate how they want the world to spin after their departure, but you can always make an effort to shine as much light as you can during your time on earth.