Getting the Last Word

I’m thinking of making the following my last words:

My nose is cold

my toes got mold

Don’t be worried, or worse, jealous. If you want to say them, be my guest. I can always think of something else.

It’s actually quite difficult to carry out specific last words. If you try it, and then let me know how it went. Most of the time we’ve got no idea that moment has come. Just ask the late great poet Louisa May Alcott, who died March 6, 1888. She probably could have picked a couplet from any one of the thousands of poems she penned, and no doubt had a few of them in mind to say if given the chance. She was having the stroke that killed her, but evidently she wasn’t sure what was happening because she asked “Is it not meningitis?” I suppose she could have said a…