Friday, February 23, 2007 The Last Word By Rene Lizada Papa's table
SOMETIMES I wonder how would we face death. A lot of us fear it primarily because we know and we do not know. We know what we have done and we fear what will be done to us when we go through the threshold. We do not know what will happen that is why we are frightened by death. And how we face it perhaps summarizes the kind of persons we are and the lives that we have lived.
I have compiled a list of Last Words uttered by a variety of men and women across time. They are as varied as their reactions when faced with the ultimate thing about life. Death.
Marie Antoinette: "Pardon me sir, I did not do it on purpose." She said these words as she accidentally hit the foot of her executioner.
Leonard Bernstein: "What is this?"
Billy The Kid: "Who is it, who is it?"
Siddharta Gautama Buddha: "All compound things are subject to breaking up. Strive on with mindfulness."
Lord Byron: "Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight."
Caesar Augustus: "The story has been completed."
Casanova: "I have lived as a philosopher and die as a Christian."
Anton Chekhov: "I haven't had champagne for a long time." The Russian writer was suffering from tuberculosis and the nurse gave him champagne to ease the suffering.
Cleopatra: "So here it is." The it was the snake that bit her.
Charlie Chaplin: "Why not? It belongs to Him."
George Armstrong Custer: "Hurrah Boys! Let's get these last few reds then head on back to camp. Hurrah!"
Dali, the Painter: "Where is my clock?"
Thomas Edison: "It is very beautiful over there."
George Eastman, inventor: "To my friends: My work is done. Why wait?" He committed suicide.
Benjamin Franklin: "A dying man can do nothing easily."
James French, a convicted killer as he was about to die in an electric chair, he shouts to the press watching him: "Hey, fellas! How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? 'French Fries'!"
Goethe, German philosopher: "More light."
Alfred Jarry, playwright: "I am dying. Please bring me a toothpick."
Pope John Paul II: "Let me go to the Father's house."
Jesus: "It is finished."
John F. Kennedy: "Is it bad? Please don't. Don't lift me."
Mao Tse Tung: "I feel ill. Call the doctors."
Mozart: "I feel ill. Call the doctors."
Barry White, the singer: "Leave me alone -- I'm fine."
George Bernard Shaw: "Dying is easy, comedy is hard."
Princess Diana: "My God, what's happened?"
Mother Teresa: "Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you."
Robert Kennedy: "Is everyone else alright?"
Nostrodamus: "Tomorrow, I shall no longer be here."
Eva Peron: "Don't cry for me, Argentina."
Pablo Picasso: "Drink to me!"
Edgar Allan Poe: "Lord help my poor soul."
Marco Polo: "Have not told half of what I saw."
Socrates: "Crito, we ought to offer a cock to Asclepius. See to it, and don't forget."
I wonder what we will say when we face death.
Operation Smile marks 25th year
YEAR-long celebration to culminate in November with the launching of the World Journey of Smiles: 40 simultaneous missions in 25 countries to treat 5,000 children, Operation Smile Philippines (OSP) is mounting a huge, 10-day, multi-site international medical mission in Cebu City, Davao City and Silay City from February 22 to March 2 to kick off the Philippine celebration of the 25th anniversary of Operation Smile Inc. (OSI), the world's largest private non-profit volunteer medical services organization.
Founded in Naga City in 1982 by American plastic surgeon Dr. William Magee and his wife, social worker and nurse Kathy, Operation Smile now operates in 25 mission countries around the globe, providing free reconstructive surgery to thousands of indigent children and young adults afflicted with cleft lip, cleft palate and other congenital facial deformities every year.
OSP will hold the medical mission at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu in partnership with the Mariquita Salimbangon-Yeung Charitable Foundation; at the Davao Medical Center in Davao City in tandem with the Social Concerns UCCP Foundation; and at the Teresita Jalandoni Memorial Provincial Hospital in Silay City in collaboration with the Hope Foundation, said OSP chair Jose L. Querubin.
Fifty foreign medical and non-medical volunteers from the other Operation Smile mission countries in Asia, the Americas and Europe are flying to the Philippines this week, bringing with them tons of medical supplies and equipment, to join 120 of their Manila-based Filipino counterparts - and hundreds more of local volunteers in the mission sites - in what could be the biggest charity undertaking in the country this year.
Hundreds of indigent children and young adults from the surrounding towns and barrios and the nearby provinces are expected to flock to the mission sites, traveling on foot, by bus and sea ferry, or by whatever means of transportation, for this rare opportunity to have their cleft deformity corrected for free.
"It will be an awesome and inspiring display of volunteerism. You have doctors and nurses and other non-medical professionals leaving their homes and taking a two-week leave of absence from their work or private practice to donate their time and expertise to heal these poor, disfigured Filipino children --- and give them a fair shot at a better future," Querubin said.
Over its 25-year history, Operation Smile has treated more than 100,000 children worldwide. In the Philippines alone, it has to date treated more than 18,000 children and young adults, and targets to do 2,000 more this year --- about 600 during the multi-site international mission this week, and the rest during the smaller local medical missions that will be conducted throughout the year by purely Filipino volunteers.
As part of Operation Smile's global 25th anniversary celebration, OSP has lined up several activities and projects including training programs for local medical professionals to hone their skills in providing quality pre-operative and post-operative care to cleft patients, 22 local medical missions in various parts of the country, and another big multi-site medical mission in November.
The multi-site mission in November will coincide with a week-long, simultaneous medical missions in all 25 Operation Smile mission countries, with the goal of providing new smiles and new lives for some 5,000 children suffering from facial deformities. The feat is aptly dubbed World Journey of Smiles. (Press release)
