before i go

I like this challenge, especially because no one asks this question! But, I think that it's such a perspective-setter. As an over-thinker, I've thought this through so many times. Last words before death are powerful things. Some people take a lighter view of it, and don't really care what their last words are. In all honesty, that's the way I would feel about dying. I wouldn't be sad or afraid to die, because I just want to be with Jesus, so it's more of a 'yay'. But last words are a different matter to me, because I think they'll stick in people's minds after you are gone, meaning that they impact those people's lives.

Everyone who was ever close to you will think about you more when they know you're gone (that sounds terrible, but it's true). Because of that, your last words could quite possibly be your most impactful ones. People's last words to me have stuck so hard that I'll never ever forget them. And that leaves me with one question- how can I get across to special people, all the important things I want to tell them, in just a few last words?? Words are my specialty, and choosing the perfect ones is such a painstaking process sometimes, especially if they are the last ones to ever leave your lungs. Anyways, after much consideration, I've come to an ultimate conclusion, a very very obvious one considering who I am, one that leaves me with no regrets. I write letters.

For about a year now, I have been writing letters to every person I've ever known, anyone special, or anyone that's left even the tiniest impact on my life. I am a writer. And I know that if someone special to me died, I would want those last words on paper, to see and hold and keep. If my friends died, I would want to know if there was anything they'd always wanted to say to me or about me, anything deep or honest, the kind of stuff you say when you know it's goodbye. So, I have been collecting letters and keeping them in a painted shoebox. To my first ever best friend from preschool and a lady with a southern accent that used to give me bags of confetti every week on Sundays and my youngest little cousin and this person that it has taken me so long to learn to forgive and my first love and the sweet neighbor girl that carved her intials into my tree before moving and the guy with dimples and a fish sweater at the airport and the kind bookstore lady that slipped an awesome note in my book, etc. etc. etc. Those letters are one of the things that I've wanted most to get done before dying, because I want people to know how amazing and loved and impactful they are, even in the smallest ways.

I don't know if that really counts for 'last words', since they're written, and not something I'd actually be saying while on my death bed (and that's assuming I die on a death bed, not while doing something totally awesome). I guess, I could whisper, "the letters!" and then die, leaving everyone to look for the letters..? Or maybe set up a long and frustrating mystery-puzzle to find them, that would be fun. Either way works. Idk man, I won't care much once I'm finally Home.