"If anyone is going to tell them all I'm still alive, it's got to be you, because you've always done it for me. Here we go again. They're trying to kill me before I'm dead. I come to Quebec to spend some time with my family and they say I'm dead. I'm not dead, far (expletive) from it. They've had me dead since June. Tell them I'm alive. Set them straight."
We shared a laugh, I told him how much I cared for him and he was gone. And he will be soon enough, but not just yet.
Burns deserves better than that. Though I guess if he were so inclined, he gets to play Tom Sawyer and listen to his own eulogies.