The Stories Behind Our First and Last Words
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Tickets at Exploratorium.edu slash After Dark. From KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Grace Wan in for Mina Kim. A child's first words, a person's last words. They mark a beginning and an end, and as a culture, we mark both. And just as often, we miss them, failing to be there when either are uttered.

Linguist Michael Erard has compiled stories about these words in his new book, Bye Bye, I Love You, the story of our first and last words. He examines why these particular words mean so much to us, and we hear from you. What's a story about first and last words that you want to share? That's all coming up next after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Grace Wan, in for Mina Kim.

In the perfect circle of life, one's first words might be mama, and one's last words might also be mama. At least that is the Hollywood version of how that might go. And sometimes in real life that does happen. But often we miss a child's first word or misunderstand it. And the same holds true for people's last ones, when illness, medication, and exhaustion can prevent or garble speech and thought.

But as linguist Michael Erard notes, these first and last words are words that hold a talismanic power over us. His new book, Bye Bye, I Love You, The Story of Our First and Last Words, offers a study of both, and he joins us here today. Welcome to Forum, Michael. Hi, Grace. Hi. When you say that there's a connection between first and last words, that they're not part of the same song, but they harmonize,

Why study first and last words in this way, in unison? What do you see as their relationship? Why study them together? Yeah, so, you know, I was interested in, you know, looking at the linguistic milestone of

at the end of life. And one of the things that sort of arises from a cultural perspective is, is a different linguistic milestone treated in the same way. So it becomes a kind of control or comparison point. One thing that I knew that I wanted to do was to look at last words across cultures and across historical eras

But it also turned out that looking at first words and how those are treated became another interesting point of comparison. You quote Toni Morrison, lovely, the amazing Toni Morrison. And she said, "How we do language may be the measure of our lives." How do these first and last words act as that measure?

So, you know, where I come from, which is a kind of white middle class American educated background, the first word is your or is a child's kind of arrival into a certain kind of social world and doing so in a way that allows the parents to understand.

maybe make a little prediction about what kind of kid you actually have, you know, like, Oh, I've got a stockbroker. Oh, I've got a lion tamer on my hands. Oh, I've got a helicopter pilot. Um, and, and also, you know, a little bit of a,

you know, like a social commodity that you can share with other people and, you know, distribute online and also have lots of interactions with. So my oldest son, one of his first utterances, which the wordness of it sort of soaked up quite a lot of our energy going, wait, is that a word? What does it mean? If it's a word, what does it mean? And does this thing count? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, your book helpfully and kind of hilariously offers an FAQ right there at the beginning. And one of the questions is, do people's last words have anything to do with their first words? And for our listeners and readers of the book, I will tell you that the answers are on pages 248 and 249. But tell us, I mean, read the rest of the book, read the rest of the book. It's a beauty, actually. But do those last words have anything to do with the first words?

So not the words themselves. So I was really interested in looking at less about the content of these things than at their form, right? And they do share some elements of the form.

One way that they share one one form that they share is that they're quite often not words, right? So when you talk to people particularly with end-of-life situations what are meaningful are other kinds of Communications not with words. So hand squeezes eye gaze facial expressions

things like that. And that is also, you know, so as the final articulation of consciousness, when you look past the word, you see all kinds of other things that happen. And similarly with the beginning of life or the beginning of language with infants, that there are

certain kinds of nonverbal things that children do that really do mark the beginning of change in cognition and linguistic ability

Namely, the point. So the ability to point at a thing and change the attention of an adult, that's a significant threshold for a child. So that's one thing that those have in common. Another thing that they have in common, the beginning and the end, is that they happen in this matrix of...

So I'm saying something and you're going to ask me a question and I'm going to say something. We're going to go back and forth. That's one of the first things that we learn how to do as babies. Right. And it's one of the last things that we do.

At the end of our lives. Well, I started with those first words, as you mentioned. I mean, I had such a heart connection reading about your attempts to hear, to capture your oldest child's first words. And I mean, as a linguist, I imagine you were particularly attuned for that moment where you kind of waiting to pounce, as it were.

I really was. And I mean, in some ways that is the seed of the book, right? Where I'm holding him and he's vocalizing, you know, with all of the little like chirps and gurgles and things. He's very far from language at that point, from producing something that sounds to my ear like what an adult would do.

But he's trying. He is using his voice to kind of explore the world around him and to see what I'm going to do. And I can't help but think in that instance, I know that I'm witnessing the beginning of something. If it happens the way that it should, right, I will not be there to see the end of it.

Yes.

put those together and address that in a very direct and concrete way. - Well, even at some point your child, you're changing his diaper, he's looking at the ceiling and he says, "Round, round," which are the words that you recognize, but there might have been things before that that you didn't recognize as words. - Sure, yeah. And things that we didn't grant that status. I mean, I think a lot of people who are hearing, but who teach their kids baby sign,

those kids will use signs before the spoken words, but not necessarily give those signs the status of the first word, right? The status, the first word in order to quote unquote count has to be, has to be a spoken word. And then he was doing things like panting like a dog. Yeah.

When he saw a dog, so he was referring to dogs, or we would say, hey, there's a dog, and he would pant. And we decided, hmm, that's not a word. Could that have gotten the label of a word? Yeah, maybe. I mean, the point is, is that we determined that, you know, the first word doesn't come with a label on it. There's not a little sign. There's not a thing that flashes up on your phone that says, this is the first word.

So you get to decide it. And it can be a lot of fun having the conversations about, like, was that first? Like, wait, what did he say? I was looking back at some journals of that time that I kept.

And my wife and I spent a tremendous amount of time sort of puzzling over what we were hearing and trying to make sense of it. Well, that's, I mean, so interesting. And it helped the difficulty in discerning what that first word is. And the problem that you, as you presented it, made me really understand one of your book's epigraphs, which is, it takes two to know one. In other words, it really takes, there's an interaction with

language that in order for it to mean something, the recipient of it needs to give it meaning. Yeah. Yeah. These are, you know, I think,

in the way that we sort of attribute an utterance to a person as the owner or producer of those things, that that's really not totally correct. That it does take other people sometimes to listen, but also to kind of lend their agency to the production of these things.

we really make these together, right? And that quote, I'll just note, it takes two to know one by Gregory Bateson, who died there in the Bay Area in 1980. Wasn't he a linguist of sorts? He was quite a lot of things. He was kind of an amazing anthropologist and sort of the earliest cybernetician. Before we get to this break, I want to just...

insert this idea again, there's first words and there's last words. And in studying these last words, you know that these words are more than a diminishment even when, and I love this line, it is still the, quote, debris of language. What do you mean by that when we come to our last words? That, um,

Sorry, remind me what I wrote. Well, let's see. It wasn't your last word. It was more like in the middle of the book. But it is this idea that, you know, these last words are not are kind of imperfect. You know, I think that we have this Hollywood idea of like, on our last moment, you know, we'll say something articulate. And I don't think that's really the case.

Yeah. So I think that idea kind of goes back to that thing that I was just talking before about the turn-taking. You know, that yes, there is a decline. Yes, there is a reduction in function. Yes, there is something that, you know, it feels like something is falling apart. But in that falling apart, it kind of reveals...

some of the factors and some of the elements that have been there for the whole time that maybe we take for granted or maybe that we've missed. Language has this kind of laminar quality, it's like laminated and at the beginning of life things are kind of getting glued together and at the end of life they're kind of coming apart.

And what it does in that coming apart is revealing its constituent parts. I think that's what I'm trying to get at there. Well, we're talking about first and last words with Michael Erard. He's a linguist and author, and his new book is Bye Bye, I Love You, the story of our first and last words. Oftentimes we miss a child's first words, or in the case of last words, illness, medication, and exhaustion can prevent speech or garble the speech and thought.

But in either case, these are words that are important. And we want to hear from you. Do you have a story you'd like to share about a loved one's first or last words? Were you attuned to your child's first words? And what emotions did you have on hearing them? And at the deathbed of a loved one, were you paying attention or waiting for last words? You can email your comments and questions to form at kqed.org. Find us on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. We're at KQED Forum. Or give us a call now, 866-733-6786.

That's 866-733-6786. I'm Grace Wan in for Mina Kim. More about words after the break. Xfinity Mobile was designed to save you money. So you get high speeds for low prices. Better than getting low speeds for high prices. Jealous? Xfinity Internet customers, get a free unlimited line for a year when you buy one unlimited line. Bring on the good stuff.

Welcome back to Forum. I'm Grace Wan in for Mina Kim. We're talking about first and last words with the author Michael Erard. He's a linguist with a new book out called Bye Bye, I Love You, the story of our first and last words.

It's about the compiled stories of a child's first words and a dying person's last ones and the connection between the two. We want to hear from you. Do you have a story you'd like to share about a loved one's first or last words? And were you attuned to your child's first words? What was it and what emotions did that have in you when you heard it?

Email your comments and questions to forum at kqed.org or find us on socials, Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. We're at KQED Forum. Or give us a call now at 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786.

So, Michael, in talking about words, I'm so curious about multilingual households and how upbringing can affect both those first and last words. I mean, in the case of first words, you have this really interesting anecdote about a child who utters a first word. It's something like mawa, mawa, and that's interpreted differently by the babysitter and the parents who speak different languages.

Yeah. So these parents come home and the, or they've, they've, how does it start? They've come home and the babysitter says, he said his first word. It's, it's muy, it's, it's pretty. So she's interpreted it, but they had spent the previous weekend listening to the kid say something that they interpreted as more. And that,

conflict, that sort of irresolvable thing stumps the child so much and confuses him that he kind of stops using language and just decides, look, forget it. You guys aren't going to get what I'm trying to say at all and becomes a little bit of a late talker. And I wanted to say too, just one thing about, you know, these phenomena that part of the reason that I wanted to write the book was to

depict more of what's normal, you know, and so that when people call in and tell stories they could also tell stories about an expectation that was not met right and I want a particularly the end of life I wanted to you know, really free people from a feeling a sense of guilt or maybe shame that there was something that they should have gotten that they should have experienced and

but they didn't. And I've had just as many conversations with people about that realm of things as people who did have something to say about a meaningful utterance. - And so many things do happen at the end of life. I mean, just sticking with multilingualism for just a moment. I mean, a lot of times at the end of life, people go back to, maybe they've come from a different country, they know how to speak English, but they go back to a mother tongue

In those moments, and is that common? And is that a function of something linguistic in our brains? Or how can we describe that?

I think that is not really well understood like a lot of things related to language at the end of life. I heard stories where people indeed who were multilingual did go back to an earlier spoken language. So someone told me about her father speaking a local language

which he had never actually used with her during her lifetime, during their life together, but on his deathbed, he said in this language, he said, let me go. And she said back to him in English,

in Dutch, in sort of the national language, just go ahead and go, right? So that was kind of a return. I mean, you could read all kinds of things into that, that that was, you know, like a return to his own childhood or return to something that was very close, you know, to him.

Lots of stories like that. But then there were other stories where, you know, someone who... I live in the Netherlands, so there's a lot of Dutch-related anecdotes here. But, you know, someone who was a Dutch speaker whose last utterance was something in English, just kind of inexplicably. And then there are things where they're very unresolved. So...

Did you remember the story about the Estonian and the German speaker? Should I tell that story? Yeah, please do. I mean, but it's so sad. I don't want to. But a man who's German and his wife who's Estonian, they speak English together and don't have any knowledge of each other's languages. She's just given birth and says something in Estonian. He recognizes that as Estonian.

But he can't understand, he can't interpret it, he doesn't know what she's saying. The medical staff hear that, realize that something is going on, and they bring her to get a brain scan and discover that she's having a massive stroke and later she dies. And so...

You know, there are these last words, but they are in this language that he doesn't have access to. So there was something that happened, you know, but he doesn't know and can never know what it is. And talking to him, it's just laden with this feeling of...

You know, of regret of something that was within his grasp, but that ultimately slipped away. You know, I think that's a really common story for, I mean, I myself am children of immigrants and my Korean is okay, but not great. And I have friends who have had this experience with grandparents who speak in Korean, the kind of last words, and they don't know what they're saying. And that, but

And there's a loss there. But then again, as one of my friends described, she's like, the connection was still there. Like, I knew that we were in this certain realm of like, I love you, I'm fine. You know, that seemed to be where we were. But I do understand that feeling of loss that you didn't quite get what you wanted to get. I mean, and it is because, you know, there's so much dramatization about what that last moment, those last words will be like. And so...

When it comes to that, I think, as you said, there's expectations, and oftentimes they're not met. Yeah, indeed, because people die in their sleep. People die in car accidents. People...

you know, something happens and it doesn't fit the usual models. And so that's yet another instance where you get to decide what is the last thing. You know, I've talked to people who had some last interaction and it didn't go the way that they want and they bear some sort of negative feeling about it.

And it's after, you know, within a year after someone passes that they sit down and they're able to write a letter to that person and to actually articulate what they should have done or what they think they should have done at the time. And that provides some healing and some closure for those people. I mean, you write that more knowledge about how language ends and how the dying communicate would give patients more agency for a longer period of time.

Yeah. So one thing that happens is that, you know, how do you communicate and how do you structure messages in such a way that people can, you know, continue with that back and forth with the turn taking structure?

of conversation and the onset of, you know, the functional decline can happen so quickly that it really puts a lot of stress on, you know, it's hard to adapt. You're adapting to something, you know, that evolves in the matter of

days, you know, or sometimes even or even hours. So I think understanding the trajectory, you know, that you will go from language, from verbalizing things to some sort of nonverbal communication, that people will go from, you know, sentences to words. That's all important because it gives you a sense of, okay, how am I going to have to adapt to

as a person who is vigiling at a deathbed, but it also, I think, eliminates some of that pressure that people have, and maybe if they're not familiar with dying, they kind of feel that pressure, particularly to have prepared some witty, eloquent thing that they're going to deliver at exactly the right time.

moment, that's not realistic and it doesn't really happen. We don't have those kinds of, we don't have that kind of control that we imagine. - One thing I liked about the way you were framing it is as the recipient of last words and first words is just trying to pay attention.

And sometimes you're there and you're not there. Like Roxanna writes, there's an assumption being made that a baby will say its first words to another person. I was taking care of a friend's toddler who didn't talk yet. He grunted for what he wanted. I was sitting downstairs and could hear him upstairs practicing his words. I don't know what he might have said as an infant, but it's possible he said his first word only to himself, which I think could very much be true. And let's go to Mandy in San Francisco. Mandy, welcome to Forum.

Hi. Yes, I'm talking about my son's first words. I remember very well, and he's 13 now. And I mean, one thing was that, of course, the first word is dad. It seems like dad's always the first sound, I guess.

But then when he learned the word ma, he called both me and my husband mom for a very long time, for months and months. But when he was about 14 or 15 months, we were on vacation, and we were at a beach where there was always airplanes flying by with a little advertisement. And so he basically learned the three words dog, airplane, and go. Oh, wow.

You know, he was an early riser, and so he would sit in our bed and point at the door and just say, go, go, go, go, go. And then, yeah, I mean, to this day, he still loves animals, and he, believe it or not, wants to be an airplane pilot. Oh, this was predictive first words, Mandy. And now that he's 14, does he still talk to you?

Oh, he does. Oh, good. You know, it takes a little work, a little work sometimes, but, you know, he surprises me sometimes. Yeah, yeah. Well, what do you think about that, Michael? I mean, when the first words end up being sort of prescient to the things that the child wants to do. Yeah, I mean, I love that. I love that sort of story. And he's presumably still a goer, right? Yeah, you can do a lot with those three words. That's a great story. I mean...

I'm just curious, in the English language, Michael, what are the most common first words? Is it... I mean, I always thought it was da-da-da because that phonetic sound is easier to create. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so...

There's a team of researchers based in California, actually, who have compiled the first common first words of young children, not only in English, but in other languages. And what's interesting is that there are some similarities among the very first 10 words, say, across cultures and across languages.

In English, there are things like mommy and daddy and banana and woof woof. And they're able to do some demographic analysis on the words as well. And apparently there's a word that only white boys with highly educated mothers say, which is vroom. Like a...

Like a vehicle noise. I feel like that's a car ad. Somebody's been watching Vroom Vroom a lot. Well, we're talking about first words and last words. Oftentimes we miss a child's first words or in the case of last words, illness or medication, sometimes exhaustion can prevent us from understanding those last words. But in either case, we assign a lot of meaning to those moments. And somebody who studied it is Michael Arard. He has a new book called

Bye Bye, I Love You, the story of our first and last words. He's a linguist and an author, and it's a really good read. And we want to hear from you, the listeners. Do you have a story you'd like to share about a loved one's first words or their last ones? And how did those words make you feel? And what do you remember about that moment?

You can email your comments and questions to form at kqed.org. Find us on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. We're at KQED Forum. Or give us a call now, 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. We want to hear your stories about first and last words. And it's okay if it's sad or happy. We'll take them all.

We have Grace from Discord writes, my dad was struck with a very aggressive form of lung cancer after a long history of smoking since his early 20s. Despite all the treatments and prevention methods we took to help him, he spent less than a year fighting it off before his final moments. He asked my mom to take me out of the room before he passed. Before I was removed from his room, his last words were to me were be strong and that he loved me.

It's been almost 11 years since that day. I hope I managed to live up to the expectations he had for me. I mean, those last words often have import because it's the last time we hear that person's voice. How powerful is the word because of the sound that comes with it?

Oh, that's an interesting question. Yeah, I think it's, I mean, I think you're absolutely right that it's connected to the, you know, the voice. Where does the voice come from? It comes from, you know, the person's body. And so it, you know, comes from deep within them. And it's something that you...

would have heard your whole life, or if not your whole life, for quite a long time. So it will be the marker of...

of that, uh, of that person. Um, there are instances, you know, where people lose the ability to use their voices and are still signaling things, you know, with their hands. So one of the anecdotes that I have in the, in the book is about the famous Baroque, uh,

Italian painter, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who is such a devout Catholic at that point that he is determined to do the last rites no matter what and what he does with his confessor and his like

death coach, who's his nephew, develop a system of hand signals so that after he's lost the ability to speak that he can still be responding to the priest's questions.

So, you know, sometimes it's about the voice and the spoken. Sometimes, and that thing that you, you know, attach to can be a nonverbal thing, a gesture. I heard stories from palliative care doctors, you know, where there's the person who's dying who sort of looks intently at each person in the room, right?

There are no spoken words, but there is in that look something that is also very deep and very personal and very enduring. Jeffrey writes,

My father quoted the last lines of his favorite poem, Invictus, by William Henley. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. And then shouted bull something and died. Both very true to form. And I love that point because oftentimes, as you say in the book, you...

who you are is reflected, can be reflected in the last words that you utter. Yeah. I mean, just putting those two last words together, though, I mean, I bet that was a really interesting marriage in some ways.

You know, and if the father had been there to hear, like, how would he have reacted if he had heard, you know, his wife's last words? Like, that was a clarion, you know, sort of like a signal for, like, you know, rescue me. He sounded like a rescuer. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we're talking about first and last words. Oftentimes we miss a child's first and last words, or we witness it and write it down and put it in bronze. And then there's the last words that people have and how we feel about them and what has been said. We're joined today by Michael Erard. He's a linguist and an author. His new book is Bye Bye, I Love You, the story of our first and last words. And you're calling in with your stories about first and last words of loved ones and friends and family.

And we'd love to hear more of them. 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. If you can't get through on the phones, email your comments and questions to forum at kqed.org or find us on socials. We're at KQED Forum. I'm Grace Wan. In for Mina Kim. More first and last words after this break.

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Welcome back to Forum. I'm Grace Wan in for Mina Kim. We're talking about first and last words with author and linguist Michael Erard. He has a new book, Bye Bye, I Love You, the story of our first and last words. And we've been hearing your stories about your baby's first words, dog, airplane, go, and last words from your family, your friends, your loved ones.

The phones are open at 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. And always you can email us at forum at kqe.org with your comments and your questions. Let's go to the phones. Alex from the East Bay. Welcome to Forum. Hello? Yeah. Hi, Alex. Hi. How are you? Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Our pleasure.

Yeah, so I just want to share my story. It's actually a sad story, but also an anniversary of my mom's death. It's going to be a week from now, it's going to be her death. But the story goes is that I was with her on her last few days, and...

The last word that she said, that she was saying to me throughout the time I was in the hospital with her, the words were...

I'm not too big. I'm Filipino, and those words mean sun, give me water. So listening to your show, it really reflects on just how beautiful life is and to understand the last words of your parents.

So the word "anakyan" means sun. And I was right next to her and she was basically throughout the night, she was thirsty because she couldn't swallow properly. And so I would have to give her a little sponge water to hydrate her. And so those were the last words that I heard from my mom before she passed away. Sun, water in Tagalog.

Yeah. And, you know, in any other context, those might not be words that you treasure. But, Michael, because those are the last words that Alex heard from his mother, those words have a special import now when said together. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And that she calls out to him and asks, Michael.

for care, right? I mean, all of these stories are, you know, come from situations where someone is having a care experience. And I think that is also a great example because it, I think it comes a little bit closer to the actual experience. I mean,

The culture of collecting and listening to famous last words from famous individuals and stuff and movie depictions has kind of primed us to think that this is this momentous moment that announces itself and gives us something kind of witty or eloquent or profound to deal with. And quite often, it seems at the surface like something that is a little more

Ordinary, right? But relational, you know, about the relationship between two people and those, you know, that's another reason to pay attention to them and to treasure them. Well, let's go to Annette in Santa Rosa. Annette, welcome to Forum. Thank you.

Hi, thank you. I wanted to speak about my mother who had about a 10-year journey through Alzheimer's. As probably most of you know, Alzheimer's, you begin to lose your ability to speak.

often quite a while before you then pass away. So that's an interesting thing. Those last words are not going to be deathbed words. We cared for her at home until the last few years, and this event happened at Christmas time.

She had been some months without being able to speak. There were a lot of people there. It was a gathering. It was overwhelming for her. I took her into a side room to just give her some peace and quiet. And she was French-Canadian. French was her first language. They spoke only French in the home. And

And I began to sing softly a French carol that she had taught us. And she came in after that stanza and sang not just the words in French, but the harmony. Ah.

Oh, no. She was a musician. You know, she had been a singer, really quite excellent. I'm a retired nurse. I knew a little something about music and its unique capacity for music.

reaching a kind of a cognition that maybe is beyond words and other feelings. I'd worked in a nursing home as a young nurse's aide, and a man with Alzheimer's who had no language had been a concert pianist. Astounded me when he sat down at the piano and beautiful classical music. Wow.

Well, Annette, thank you. Thank you for sharing that beautiful story and your rendition of that French carol, which I actually really love. It's one of my favorites. So thank you for sharing that. I mean, Michael, when you hear stories like that, when somebody, I mean, Annette makes a very good point, like the last word isn't necessarily on a person's deathbed.

Sure. I mean, that's a little bit, that's harder territory to, I mean, it is true because it's, you know, there's a finality to it, you know, and in those cases, you run into the same sort of feeling of like, what if there was a last utterance and I missed it? You know, I was interested in something that was closer to when people actually

expire because there are some real physiological constraints. So there were certain kinds of deaths, certain kinds of dying that I didn't look at so much.

But you're right. Yeah, there can be a last thing. I mean, similarly, there can be a first thing, say, when someone wakes up from a coma or wakes up from surgery. There's a whole bunch of words like that that are also very interesting and very gripping and very moving. I was interested in the kind of tension between the organic function and what we bring to society

as receivers, as perceivers from a cultural perspective. Let's go to Linda in Millbrae. Hi, Linda. Welcome to Forum.

Thank you so much. My story is about my mother. She was a brilliant woman. She was a teacher and had lived a really giving life. So it was particularly sad to see her work through Alzheimer's. And by the time she was in her early 90s,

She was still able to converse, but she was limited. As she got very ill, and I know we were talking about the last day, I was with her in the hospital, and I actually got on top of the bed and laid next to her so I could talk close to her ear so that she would know that I was there.

And because I wanted her to know that I was there, I kept up a steady conversation. And I was reaching after several hours, and I went back to our church days, and I was singing hymns to her and talking about how she was going to be able to greet my father and her sister soon. And finally, I just paused and I said, Mom, can you hear me? And she said, no. Hmm.

That was the last word she said. And it was several hours before she actually passed away. But that was the last word my mom said. But at least I knew she could hear me. Right. Right. She was listening. She was listening. So, Michael, there are these moments of lucidity that come towards the end that you talk about this phenomena. Tell us a little bit more about that.

So there's a phenomenon called terminal lucidity or also lightening up. And there are probably lots of other kind of colloquial expressions for that. But it's, you know, where someone who has been non-responsive for a long period of time suddenly...

kind of returns to their old self. People will say they sit up, they become social, they want to walk around, they might eat more than they've eaten for a long, long time. And it's hard to get a sense of how often that happens or how frequent it is. But my overwhelming sense is that we shouldn't, you know, expect that.

that to happen. That there are final conversations that we wanna have, final connections, and we should have those well in advance

even of that sort of situation, because that is quite often a harbinger of, you know, someone's actually expiring, which can happen within the next day or two. So the terminal lucidity is not so much, you know, the possibility that someone is going to recover and get to go home. It

unfortunately a sign that the end is very near. Well, you have this quote that you attribute to your friend Louis or Louie and it's the quote is your last words shouldn't be the first time you share a truth or tell a secret. They should be the last time you say the thing you've been saying your whole life. And I mean, we were debating before with the producer Mark and I were talking about this show and I was like, yeah, I think it's

That quote is like how Darth Vader says to Luke, I am your father. And Mark pointed out, oh, no, that happened well before Darth Vader was killed in the movie Grace. And but I think that is the point, right? It's like you tell the secret well before the ending so that there's a chance to have a conversation. And you think that's very important.

Yeah. You say the thing. I mean, so one of the things is that in the kind of physiological stress of dying, there's not a lot of resources to come up with something new or to remember something that you might not have said. So the thing that you would have said, you know, quite a lot that's very

well practiced and easy to access in your brain is going to be something that you're, that you find easy to produce. That's why. Thank you. I love you. Uh, goodbye. You know, things like that. I'm sorry. Things like that. Uh,

things like that show up, or some sort of ritual last word that's prescribed by religion. And one of the things that I really like about the book was that I kind of break out of that famous last words tradition, like let's hear what individuals say, and let's look at the traditions where

Really what you're expected to say, the thing that everybody says and that everybody has said and everybody will say in that community. So it's not that you're standing out when you produce these things, but that you are becoming one with your community again. Yeah.

Well, we're talking with Michael Arard. He's a linguist and author. His new book is Bye Bye, I Love You, the story of our first and last words. We're talking about first and last words and hearing stories from you about your loved ones' first and last words. You can give us a call now, 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. You can email your comments and questions to forum at kqed.org.

This is a fundraising period for many public radio stations. You're listening to Forum. I'm Grace Wan in for Mina Kim. Let's go to Janine in Claremont. Hey, Janine, how are you? Welcome to Forum. I'm great. How are you? Great.

What's your story? I wanted to share a story about when my mom was dying. She hadn't had anything to say for almost over a month, and I was helping take care of her, and I got bored of sitting, so I stood up and I started singing some camp songs that we used to sing. And all of a sudden, she...

Faith got all contorted, and she started waving her hands, and she looked up at me in a very clear voice and said,

Stop that. You're embarrassing me. Oh, yeah. And those were her last words. And I was the one that mostly took care of her the last five years of her life. So it was a painful memory. Plus, she used to tell me as a child I didn't have a very good singing voice. Oh, yeah.

You know, you always want to hear the words you yearn for, but you don't always get that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Michael, you want to expand on that? Exactly. I mean, I've so so the you know, it's it's a sort of point of privilege, I think, to assume that.

that the last words are things that you want to hear and that you will cherish, that that's not necessarily the case in all situations. Sometimes you don't get them. And sometimes what you get is hard to make sense of. How do you interpret it? And sometimes it is something like this that has a kind of, you know, that brings up some sort of

harsher emotional experiences of the past that that's a hard that's a hard story to hear and I had certainly heard other stories where you know people didn't even want to relate what had happened because what they had heard was something that was you know they wished that they had never they wished that they had never heard it you know I mean I would say to that to that caller that

I mean, that really, really hurts. And that, you know, I hope that she's been able to, I'm not a therapist, but I feel like, you know, that, um, that, that I hope that she's found a way since then to kind of make for herself the kinds of things that,

that she did expect and give those to herself or find someone else to give them to her. Exactly. It sounds like Janine was an incredible caretaker. So, and that's the last word on that. Let's go to Donna in Grand Terrace. Donna, welcome to Forum. Donna, looks like Donna might not be there. So let's, let's go to Janet in Menlo Park.

Hi, Janet. Welcome to Forum. Good morning. Good morning. I have a little story to tell about my dad. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, he enlisted. And he spent four years in the Philippines all the way up to the signing of the peace treaty. And the thing he remembered the most or the story he would tell was how planes would deliver Hershey bars to the soldiers and how much they looked forward to that. So

So when he was on his last, in his last minutes, the family was around and he hadn't spoken much. He pushed away everything. He didn't want to eat or drink. But a little bit later, he said, Hershey bar. So his wife...

And were those his last words, Janet? Hershey Bar, yeah. I think you need to tell the Hershey Bar company. I really do feel like that is the ultimate testament. There's a branding opportunity. Yes, yes, absolutely. And how did it feel to hear those words? Was that comforting, Janet?

Yes, but the best part was his wife ran to the kitchen, couldn't find a Hershey bar, but found Hershey syrup and tried to feed it to him, and he knocked it away and went, Hershey bar!

Oh, my gosh. Well, that is an amazing story, Janet. That's a good story. That's a great story. I mean, Michael, is there a candy bar that needs to be available for your last moments? I mean, in preparation. For mine? Yeah, yeah. I wanted to talk, we have like a minute and a half left in the hour, about the end of your book. And I know that you have not scripted any last words. I did read this book, so I'm aware. But the end

the end of it is like a beautiful, almost a very detailed advanced directive of what you would want to have happen in those last moments. And I thought maybe you could share some of what it is that you want so that maybe it would inspire our listeners.

Sure. So you quoted this earlier, you know, my friend Lewis's advice that, you know, the last thing you say shouldn't be something new, but should be the last time you say something that you've been saying for your whole life. So that's one little, you know, bit of advice that I hold for myself. But also that in these situations where I as a speaker will not have control over

or may not have control, the thing that I can do that I can leave behind is sort of some interpretive instructions for people. You know, to say, you know who I was, you know who I am. I may not be in control of the things that I say, but you knew these things about me, so please interpret what I say in a way that's consistent with who I was. Hmm.

Well, we've been talking about first and last words. And Michael O'Rourke, thank you so much for sharing your insights into both the first words and the last words. Thanks, Grace. I loved hearing all those stories. They're great. Michael's book is Bye Bye, I Love You, the story of our first and last words. And thank you to our listeners and callers for sharing your loved ones' first and last words. It was a pleasure and a privilege to share those stories. I'm Grace Wan, in for Mina Kim. Thanks for listening.

Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.