You wander. It’s what you do. Everywhere you look, other people are wandering. They are happy and content, there is no real sense of purpose to them but there is a degree of self, of knowing things that you wouldn’t have just known.

There is a decorum here that you didn’t expect and couldn’t have done. When you first meet someone, you smile (it is automatic). You reach out your hands and hold theirs. You open your mouth and they open theirs.

“Wait, I’ll just cross the street and get it,” the other person says.

You love that moment. They say that line and then real conversation happens. You hear who they are, where they’re from, who they watch. You get to hear all that after your first greeting.

You’ve heard many.

“What an ugly goddamn sweater,” you heard once.

“I’m so tired,” is one you have heard more times than you can count.

“Please make it stop hurting” is one that makes you drop your hands and wrap them tightly in a hug.

“Oh God!” is another one that is not new and entered the realm of passé.

“This tastes off to me,” is the one that made you (inappropriately) laugh.

“Mother,” is the one that is said in a whisper, and it stabs you in the heart every time. It takes precedence over “My driving is just fine, now lemme’ alone!” as something that grabs your attention, although the latter makes you yearn to turn back the clock.

People tend to group together after the initial sentence. You see the people standing together a lot, the “I’m so tired” people standing around looking through their non-existent pockets for their non-existent cigarettes. The ones who say “Oh god!” often look mildly shocked, as though permanently looking through the windshield of a car. The ones who scream “Help!” in your face just before breaking into a smile and then reaching out with both hands often have scars like thick ropes on their palms, as though they reached through fire and their hands were found wanting. The ones who whisper “Mother” are young men with short hair and nervous Adam’s apples who look like they skirted living and wound up living a life that will never be apart from them again, a tender fragility that even once the introduction is out of the way and the cheeky grin in place, you want to reach out to them and keep them safe and sound.

This is how it is done. In the afterlife your first introduction to someone is the last thing they said out loud while still alive. It is a leveller and a damn good one, too.

You’re surprised at how shocked you are at some of the things that are said. From the hilarious: “Dude, let’s try a human catapult, it’ll be awesome!” said by a young man with fabulous dreadlocks to the horrifying: “Please, I can’t breathe!” from a tiny slip of a girl who was inches away from being a woman. Some things make you feel uniquely human: “Mike, put the meatloaf on for 2 hours if you want it to be tender”. Others make you want to hurt someone, like the “No, please no!”, as shouted by a woman who looked like they hade gone a round or two with someone that they should have been spared from.

No matter where they’re from or the language they once spoke, you understand each other. It is the great ice-breaker, this. As the first words they say to someone new, you get to hear who they once were and what they once felt. Class, race, sex, nationality…none of them are dividers now. What divides you is the last thing you said. The men who whisper “Mother” saw brutality as their end, the saying that men dying in combat ask for their mother at the very end pans out to be the truth. The ones who said quietly about how tired they were ended life at the end of a chemotherapy drip. The ones who shout “Fuck you!” alternate between women with nothing left to prove to men who had entirely too much to. In this brightly lit place you reach out and hold the hands of the person you meet and find out how they went. The women with the perfect coiffures who say to you “Honestly, Frank, I’ll just do it myself” are just as happy to reach out and hold the hands of a person whose last words were “Hey my socks don’t match” to the sad ones who say “Oh god, I just pissed myself.”

The best was from an octogenarian with a twinkle in his eye: “Fuckit, George, let’s jump and have the last time of our lives!”

The worst was from a gap toothed seven year old with strawberry blond hair who grinned as she said “Mummy, will you sing me Twinkle Twinkle Little Star again?”. When she said that to you, you dropped to your knees with memories of blond curls and strawberry milk and held her on your lap and you sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to her until you were hoarse.

You belong to a group, too. You’re an unofficial group but a group nonetheless. You meet each other and smile and once your pleasantries are exchanged – I’m Betty, I’m Bob, I love to watch over my grandchildren, I’m still watching over my dear wife who still can’t scrape the ice off the car properly – you move on because you are in a different group, a group that has no purpose but which knows its life is meant to be nomadic and bittersweet in a way that people (particularly the young men who whisper “Mummy”) need.

You meet someone and reach out your hands with a smile.

“I have to get the horse re-shod!” mutters the man

“I love you,” you say back with a soft smile. He smiles back and squeezes your hands gently. This is the one that he likes to hear, even if the sentiment is not about him. This is the one that everyone likes to hear. Last words are often about fear or pain, your last words are the antithesis that alleviates the breaking.

His last words were about horseshoes.

Your last ones were the ones you always give to your loved ones when you say goodbye. There are times when in a hurry or during an argument that the words weren’t said. You were angry so they couldn’t have the comfort of your love. You were cheeky and waved them off with something irreverent. But most of the time – and this time in particular – you told them as you tucked yourself into the car for the day that you loved them.

The last words that you said on earth and the first words you said afterwards.

It doesn’t make you special, or holier-than-thou, or perfect. It makes you human and vulnerable. It makes you a balm. It makes you someone of comfort. Mostly, it makes you lucky.

-S

PS – it’s that de-lurk time of year again. Welcome to De-Lurk 2011. I’ve been a crap blogger recently, but help remind me that you’re here and that I need to get off my backside and be there with you. I’m an insecure, dorky train wreck who does like hearing from people, even when I am too embarrassed to contact you. You read me, now let me know who you are?