Monday, January 17, 2011

LAST WORDS

Soooo, I’m watching HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER and crying like an idiot. I KNOW. I know... HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER is a sitcom and it is (unlike many) funny. Why am I crying you ask? I’ll tell you why I’m crying.

They went and killed Marshall’s father and they did a really good job. I mean a really (really) good job. The Lilly character (Allyson something-or-other [see: Aging, Open Letter to]) does one of the best crumply-face-trying-to-speak-while-about-to-cry-filled-with-sadness expressions I have ever seen. Man, when she whipped that sucker out in the last episode I was gone. I’ll grant, I am an easy TV and movie crier. (What was it in STEEL MAGNOLIAS? “No one cries alone in my presence.” Well, that’s me. I don’t cry much at funerals in fact I’m a bit of stoic in real-life tragedy but if someone else starts or if something is really touching in non-real-life, I’m gone. There was this MacDonald’s commercial...but, I digress. <it’s one of my strengths - digression>) Anyway, last week they killed Marshall’s father and this week they had the funeral. More crumply Lilly face, sad angry Marshall and friends feeling sad and at a loss and me crying here on my bed in my house playing Words with Friends and sniffing.

The funeral (and the episode) progressed and the characters all found themselves talking about last words. Marshall’s other family members all had some all touch-feely moments with dad and some equally lovely last words. Marshall, on the other hand, had a discussion of Crocodile Dundee III and he was feeling kinda cheated. His friends followed with assurances that last words were random chance, not significant in terms of a lifetime. They said all the true things that friends would say and that might or might not bring any comfort to the listener and the episode ended (as it should) with Marshall finding out that he had a final voice mail from his dad. Marshall’s dad told him that he loved him and that he was out of foot fungus cream.

So, are they significant, last words I mean? I know what both of my parents last words to me were but I was with them as they died so we were (by virtue of the event) speaking about rather significant things. Beyond that circumstance though conversation is a fairly randomly woven thread. Should we speak always cognizant that these might be our last words? It might be kind of cool. Everyone trying to sound like Patrick Henry at the gallows every time they leave a room or click end on a phone conversation. I don’t see it catching on though.

My friend Mary may have the answer. Her daughter died unexpectedly and though she doesn’t regret the last conversation they had (it was a prosaic, every day conversation - mundane even) she regrets that the last thing she said wasn’t “I love you.” Mary makes certain now that the last thing she says in every conversation, chance encounter, e-mail or text with her son and daughter is “I love you.” They say it to her as well. It’s rather lovely coz it’s clear that they mean it- it has become ritual but is also true.

I’m more of ‘goes without saying’ kind of gal but I wonder if i should be...

Hey, My Boo: I love you.

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