I am not a regular television watcher. Oh, I have my favorite series (Criminal Minds) but I haven’t even seen that for a couple of weeks. The other day I turned on the tube, to spend a few minutes out in La La Land. It was after dinner, and I expected to find channel after channel of world news.
What I did find was channel after channel of Whitney Houston death, life, career and speculation ‘news’.
The height of her career was when I was in high school and just after. She was one whose ‘cassettes’ I bought, and listened to over and over and over again. I was pretty sure that I could hit the same high notes as she in “I Will Always Love You” (insert my kids shocked faces … I can hit those notes, but never when I am supposed to … heck I can hit pretty much any note in existence in one song … but, I digress).
The television program that got my attention was one that was airing the last interview with Whitney. I listened attentively, turning every word over in my head, anticipating some clue that she was subconsciously aware of her oncoming earthly end.
Last words are like that. When one dies, what we seek to remember most clearly are the last things the deceased said to us, and to others. Our last words are like the fragrance of our funeral flowers, either they scent the room with loveliness, or they stink the place to high heaven, and no life end would be complete without our acknowledging them.
Below is a video, which (if you start listening at 2:28) has the following lyrics:
“A penny for my thoughts, oh no, I’ll sell ’em for a dollar
They’re worth so much more after I’m a goner
And maybe then you’ll hear the words I been singin’
Funny when you’re dead how people start listenin'”
I wonder how many more people have watched that last Whitney Houston interview, because of her demise, than would have if she were still alive. It leaves me to believe that the author of the lyrics of this song was right, the value of our words grows exponentially after our death (“they’re worth so much more after I’m a goner”).
Simple words, spoken by the living are reborn once the speaker is dead. Whitney’s death has cause us to “start listenin'”. Maybe we should start listening to people more closely before they are gone …
itsawonderfilledlife 