“Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.” These were Steve Jobs’s last words before he slipped the bonds of earth on Oct. 5, 2011. We know this because we heard it from his sister, the writer Mona Simpson, who was with him in his final hours and described them in an eloquent eulogy published this week in The New York Times (Best columns: The U.S.). Like the rest of us, Simpson had no idea what Jobs was seeing when he uttered his last words, but she invites us to ponder their meaning in the context of his life. She speaks of her brother’s “capacity for wonderment,” and his last words indeed seem apt and authentic for an enthusiast given to phrases like “insanely great.” It is tantalizing to think that in his final moments of consciousness, Jobs was privy to a wondrous vision of the other side. Maybe he beheld a beckoning mist, as Emily Dickinson did: “I must go in, the fog is rising.” Or the “shifting sands” seen by writer L. Frank Baum, who wished to cross over to the Land of Oz. Thomas Edison, to whom Jobs was often compared, said of his final destination, “It is very beautiful over there.”
We value last words for their honesty, their wit, their advice from eternity’s doorstep. Once in a while we get a grand summation, as we did from Errol Flynn: “I’ve had a hell of a lot of fun and I’ve enjoyed every minute.” Or an adieu, per Lord Byron: “Now I shall go to sleep. Good night.” George Harrison left us with five simple syllables: “Love one another.” Oh wow. In the end we will all find out what Steve Jobs was talking about. Meanwhile it’s somehow comforting to know that he was impressed.
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