Beyond The Wall: The Last Essay

By Charles “Tom” Brown

It was late afternoon in the prison classroom, and we were discussing the topics for the GED essay when a hand went up in the back of the room. It was an elderly inmate who asked me a question that I’m still thinking about today. He asked, “If you knew you didn’t have long to live and could only write one last essay, what would you write?”

As I think about that question, I recall some of the lyrics of a song called “The Last Song”:

If this is my last song,
If this is my final day,
If tomorrow I’ll be gone,
What do I want to say?

Have I given hope to the hopeless?
Have the hungry all been fed?
Has the child stood a little taller
‘cause of something that I said?

Have I left a little kindness?
Have I eased a little pain?
If so, then I’m glad I came.
For that, I’m so glad I came.

One day we will reach a point where we will realize we are on our last leg of this time on Earth. We will see that so much came and went, so many people came and went, and so many things seemed real for a while, and then they were gone. Some we will remember, many we won’t.

Through grace, we’ll know that it is not the end of what is real; it’s only the end of the body, the end of the grand performance. We’ll know that our true Self doesn’t grow old and die. We’ll feel gratitude knowing that we live in eternity, without beginning or end, forever and always now.

In the end when we look back over the meaning of our life, we’ll see that all that really mattered was the way we cared for each other and that its greatest expression was in helping others. We’ll see that when we enter the sacred realm of the heart, the one thing that can never be taken from us, even by death, is the love we give away before we go. We’ll see that the most eloquent answer to death’s “no” is love’s “yes”.