http://tinyurl.com/jobsfinalwords

Steve Jobs’ Final Words Shared in Sister’s Eulogy
By Kevin Dolak
ABC News
31 October 2011

Jack Arent/Palo Alto Daily News/AP Photo

Steve Jobs’ sister Mona Simpson shared in the eulogy she delivered at the late Apple CEO‘s memorial service that his surprising final words from his deathbed were, “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.”

In the eulogy, which was printed in The New York Times on Sunday, Simpson describes Jobs’ final days and moments in a Palo Alto hospital, which was spent surrounded by family as his breathing gradually became shorter.

His breath, she said, “indicated an arduous journey, some steep path, altitude.”

Delivered at the October 16 service for Jobs at Stanford Memorial Church, Simpson, an accomplished novelist, began by describing her initial meeting of her brother for the first time when she was in her mid-20s. Simpson was born in 1957, two years after Jobs, who was given up for adoption as an infant.

“Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother,” Simpson said.

Simpson went on to describe her strong relationship with the man now know for the revolutionizing computer world, while explaining Jobs’ work ethic and capacity for love — particularly for his wife Laurene and as a doting father to their three children.

“Steve was like a girl in the amount of time he spent talking about love. Love was his supreme virtue, his god of gods. He tracked and worried about the romantic lives of the people working with him,” she said.

In describing his illness from pancreatic cancer, which Jobs was diagnosed with in October 2003, Simpson paints a picture of Jobs as an enduring, “intensely emotional man.”

She concluded her eulogy by sharing Jobs’ final moments, which were spent staring lovingly at his family, and his final three monosyllabic words as he stared into the distance past their shoulders:

"OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW."

Simpson is currently a professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. She has written five novels, and won the Whiting Prize for her debut, “Anywhere But Here.”

http://tinyurl.com/jobsfinalwords

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Christopher

This article, and his final words, made me think. If true, we don't know what it was that Steve Jobs was marveling about. Was it just the final words of a man in great pain? Or was it a vision of the other side by a man breathing his final few breaths?

Still, there have been other famous last words (or rumored last words) of historic figures that have been just as telling. Here is a short list:

"It's very beautiful over there."
- Thomas Edison

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."
- Pancho Villa

"Now, now, my good man, this is no time for making enemies."
- Voltaire, when asked by a priest to renounce Satan

"Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!"
- Karl Marx

"I have a terrific headache."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"I have not told half of what I saw."
- Marco Polo

"Don't you dare ask God to help me."
- Joan Crawford (actress), directed towards a housekeeper who began to pray aloud.

"Lord help my poor soul!"
- Edgar Allan Poe

"I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, you are only going to kill a man."
- Che Guevara

"See in what peace a Christian can die."
- Joseph Addison

"This is the last of earth! I am content."
- John Quincy Adams

"How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden?"
- P.T. Barnum

"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."
- Oscar Wilde

"Now comes the mystery."
- Henry Ward Beecher

"Friends applaud, the comedy is finished."
- Ludwig van Beethoven

"I am not the least afraid to die."
- Charles Darwin

"All my possessions for a moment of time."
- Elizabeth I,

"Turn up the lights, I don't want to go home in the dark."
- O. Henry

"I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark."
- Thomas Hobbes

"I am a Queen, but I have not the power to move my arms."
- Louise, Queen of Prussia

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."
- General John Sedgwick, Union Commander, speaking of Confederate soldiers

"I die hard but am not afraid to go."
- George Washington

Some of this little collection of famous last words is humorous, some poignant but others are simply tragic. A person lives his life -- regardless of whether he lives to be 120 years old -- and their last statement is often a reflection of what was important when nearly as important as the way they lived their life.

Contrast all of those above with the final words of our Lord...and one of his servants:

"Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them."
- Stephen (Acts 7:59-60)

"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."
- Jesus Christ (Luke 23:46)

May God help us live for him in such a way that our love for the Lord and others is reflected in our death!

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Christopher

Repeated post, deleted.

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Christopher

My husband had an uncle who pursued a life of sin. He died in a hospital attended by a nurse. She said his death was so awful. He cried out in agony, horror saying his feet were in the fire. This nurse said she hopes she will never, ever again witness anything like this.
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My childhood friend was a preacher's daughter. Her mothers last words are so precious to this family. As she - Wilma Yoder - lay dying she would hear beautiful music and ask her family if they do not hear that music. Just before she expired she said, "Oh it's so beautiful!" raising her hands in delight and joy.
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A young man in our church was dying of cancer. During his last week of life he talked a lot about the beautiful music he was hearing that no one else could. He talked with delight about heaven...People went to visit him, encourage him but they were the ones who left feeling encouraged and blessed.
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My grandfather had a cousin who had 'died' and saw heaven. He came back and felt so disappointed that he was not allowed to stay - he never could figure out why God did not allow him to remain. He felt this life was just awful!
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Over a year ago we had a customer who had a near-death-experience. He believed he saw heaven - he saw family members and it was wonderful. He showed me his Masonic ring and told me that by the authority of this ring he will work to do good so he can return to this place! I asked whether he saw Jesus or angels and he said "no".
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QUOTE:
"May God help us live for him in such a way that our love for the Lord and others is reflected in our death!"

AMEN!

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Sandra Miller

My sister was a nurse at a nursing home years ago and little old lady who was in a coma and in a fetal position. My sister had to work to get her arms open to wash her and suddenly one night, my sister and the EKG guy were the only ones in the room and this woman sat straight up in bed with her arms wide open and said, "I see glory and it's beautiful!" She fell back down on the bed and all the alarms went off, she had died.

Praise the living God!
God bless,
Lisa

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Lisa

This is my favorite... this is an account of the death of Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson during the Civil War (a solid true believer in Jesus Christ!):

"A few moments before he died he cried out in his delirium, "Order A.P. Hill to prepare for action! Pass the infantry to the front rapidly! Tell Major Hawks..." — then stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished. Presently a smile of ineffable sweetness spread itself over his pale face, and he said quietly, and with an expression, as if of relief, "Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.""

Krispy

Beautiful, Lysa.

ginnyrose

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Sandra Miller