Should you be able to visit me at my deathbed in the far, far, far away future, please remind me that I used to be a woman of strong opinions.  As evidence you can produce a blog from days yore that described my desired approach to last words.

“You despised,” you’ll remind me, “those saccharine utterances often ascribed to the rich and famous. No “More light!, I love y’all !, Don’t leave me alone!” for this blogger.”

“Remember,” you’ll say, ” what you picked as your favorite last words, however they were recorded, as epitaphs, letters, suicide notes or plain old utterances (that people probably changed to their liking in the first place)?”

“Words that were acerbic, witty, searing or courageous, that’s what you wanted to emulate.”

Like John Wilkes Booth’s, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, who uttered:”Useless, useless!”  I guess you always know better with hindsight…. 

Or Karl Marx’s, who shouted at his house keeper inquiring about what he wanted the world to know: “Go on, get out, last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.”  He said enough all right, but too few listened….

Or Christopher Hitchens’, who mumbled “Capitalism. Downfall.” Provocative to the end.

Or Erskine Childers’:”Take a step forward, lads. It will be easier that way.” Uttered as an encouragement to his firing squad. Not a bad way to be remembered as a Brit flinging himself into Ireland’s war.

Another courageous soul, Todd Beamer, shouted: “Let’s roll!” Overheard on an open phone line just before attempting to regain control of the hijacked Flight 93 on 9/11.

“Just don’t let the words be forced like this,” you echo my old writing,” the “I can’t breathe” of Eric Garner and Jamal Kashoggi. 

Please DO remind me that I settled in the end on one provided by defiant writer, anarchist, and stout defender of the American wilderness, Edward Abbey.

“No Comment.”

(Here is a link that describes his extraordinary life;

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/best-reads/2015/04/17/edward-abbey-last-act-defiance/25930091/

Come to think of it, I might change my mind.  I will learn by heart these words of Rosa Luxemburg’s last known text, written the day before her murder, to have them handy during my departure:

»Ordnung herrscht in Berlin!« Ihr stumpfen Schergen! Eure »Ordnung« ist auf Sand gebaut. Die Revolution wird sich morgen schon »rasselnd wieder in die Höh’ richten« und zu eurem Schrecken mit Posaunenklang verkünden: Ich war, ich bin, ich werde sein!

 “Order prevails in Berlin (substitute any capital in the world….F.H.)!’ You stupid lackeys! Your ‘order’ is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will already ‘rise up again, clashing its weapons’ and to your horror it will proclaim with trumpets blazing: I was, I am, I shall be!”

Then again, maybe whispering “No comment” will be easier.  We’ll see.

Photographs today are of prickly things, echoing prickly sentiments and Western desert life that Abbey protected.