I am about to take my final voyage, a great leap in the dark. – Philosopher Thomas Hobbes

The military has sought to glorify it, poets and lovers have romanticised it, and science has attempted to explain it. 

But it’s out there, the unmentionable that remains forever inexplicable. It’s the ultimate final frontier, a debt we are all owed. And it is an enduring irony that its cause is birth itself. 

We are, of course, talking of death. 

It has been described in myriad fashion, the best of which must surely belong to the French. They described an orgasm as la petite mort (the little death). The expression describes the weakening or loss of consciousness following climax. 

If that’s how it goes, methinks everyone will be for it. 

Woody Allen thought the same way. “Sex is like death,” agreed the American film-maker, “only after death, you don’t feel like a pizza.”

You could tell US actor George Gobel took his hard luck stories to the limit: “I’m the kind of guy who’ll have nothing all my life and then they’ll discover oil while they’re digging my grave.” 

Malaysian politicians should take note of Benjamin Franklin’s advice: “Death takes no bribes.” Actor Frank Dane must have seriously disliked politicians because he  thought the death of any politician should be listed under ‘Public Improvements.”

Ruminating on people who’d passed away, actor Bill Murray mused: “A few decades ago, we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs. Now we have no Hope, no Cash and no Jobs; please don’t let Kevin Bacon die!” 

The strangest final words by anyone have to belong to Australian pilot Frederick Valentich. In 1978, he reported to Air Traffic Control he was “being pursued” by a purported Unidentified Flying Object. His last words sounded scared: “It is hovering, and it is not an aircraft.”

Neither Valentich nor his plane were ever found.

The American author William Saroyan was quizzical on his deathbed: “Everybody has to die but I always believed an exception would be made in my case.”  

Terry Keith, the founding member of the band Chicago didn’t know it was to be his last words when he reassured his girlfriend about the gun he was cleaning; “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded.” 

Apparently, you should also never say never. Consider the English statesman Lord Palmerston who felt outraged after his doctor said his heart was so weak he could go anytime: “Die? My dear Doctor, that’s the last thing I shall do.” 

It was the last thing he did. 

Scriptwriter Stan Laurel’s bark could never be effected: “If anyone cries at my funeral, I’ll never speak to him again.”  

I’m not sure who said this, but it sure conveys a whole host of emotions. “I want to die like my grandfather, peacefully in his sleep, not like the other screaming and panicked passengers in his car.” 

Oscar Wilde was witty right to the end. His last words: “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either they go or I do.” 

Surprisingly, so was convicted murderer James French, albeit in macabre fashion. While being led to the electric chair, the convict yelled out to the assembled press: “Hey fellas. I’ve got a headline for your paper tomorrow. “French Fries!”

Peter Pan called it the “next, great adventure.” But what has fascinated mankind throughout the ages is its ineffable mystery: the knowledge that must lie out there. 

Why would Steve Jobs have muttered what he did when he was about to pass? Ministering to him as he lay on his deathbed, Jobs’ sister distinctly heard her brother breathe: “Oh Wow. Oh Wow. Oh Wow.”

I wonder what he realised.

ENDS