In The Beginning

I have been thinking of late, that blogging as a relatively wide spread phenomenon, has become a new arena for 'Last Words.' I have posted about blogs of those whom have died of cancer, those whom have blogged before killing themselves, those whom have blogged before killing their mother and going off to jail, I have posted those whom have blogged about dark desires to kill before they actually go off and do so, and in turn kill themselves.

What is it about the human desire to seek truth in the last words of other human beings? Is it the belief that before death people have some how discovered the truth? Or are we looking for some familiar hint of the slow, thick darkness that we want to hide from and avoid? What do we learn from last words, if we learn anything at all? Would we be better off reflecting on first words, would they give us more insight in to the life to unfold, or would they hold equal mystery?

My son's first word was 'ot', which for us (and I believe for him) meant hot. He had learned the word from the many times we had told him to avoid the stove, the light bulbs, and other things on which he might burn himself. But he had also learned it from the 'Last Word' of a story we had read to him hundreds of times, he knew it by rote. The last line from Maurice Sendak's "Where the wild things are"... "And into the night of his very own room, where his supper was waiting for him, and it was still 'ot.'