It is clearly click bait when an article or link is titled “click here for the saddest story” or “this may be the most heart-warming experience — read more!” But with The Last Message Received, a Tumblr page, it most certainly is not.
The page was created by Emily Trunko in Copley, Ohio on Nov. 9, 2015. The page has created an outpour on the Internet as it has accumulated thousands of submissions and tens of thousands of subscribers.
The page amassed the last text messages from individuals received, ranging from ex-significant others to friends and family members who have passed away whether it be intentional, as in suicide, or not.
"I’ve always been fascinated with glimpses into the lives of other people,” Trunko told BuzzFeed. “I thought that the last message sent before a breakup or before someone passed away would be really poignant.”
It is almost a funny thing to think, 'what if this is the last text message I receive or send out?' It becomes apparent, to most, when texting or calling hoping that the last message sent is not filled with hatred and grief but rather affection and compassion. To think that the words created from your fingers could be the last; it’s heart-wrenching.
“I definitely live vicariously through the submissions,” she said. “I’m probably the first person, other than the person who initially wrote the letter or received the text, to read these submissions. That’s a pretty amazing feeling.”
Reading the messages puts a glimpse into one’s life who lost, physically or emotionally, a loved one or even one who is despised. It could be a sense of hope, as one user’s last message received was from someone who raped her before she blocked her from her life, to grief, as a father compliments his daughter’s wedding photos saying he is going to print them out before he committed suicide. In the description of this particular submission, it says the individual who found her father found the pictures of her wedding printed on his desk.
It makes you look back on the last messages of the people who truly influenced you, positively and negatively, to see what their last words to you were. Would it be OK if these words were the last words received? Would you be fine with the scolding text message from your mother that were sent last night over a pity-filled fight?
How about your grandmother who has been trying to get in contact with you, leaving voicemails asking you to call her back, though you rarely do? It puts yourself in the shoes of the ones who had lost those vital people in their lives, and it even puts your feet in the shoes of your loved ones.
Even something so little as “OK.” Would you like that to be your last words to your brother?
Most people don’t think about it, and that is quite ordinary. Everyone gets wrapped up in life; everyone gets submerged into school and work, family time and friend time. But who is to say those words would not be the last words you have?
Reading these messages makes most people feeling depressed and overall remorseful. It teaches individuals to live life to the fullest, to befriend anyone willing to befriend them, to love unconditionally, to forgive and forgive. For you never know when those messages may be your last.
