‘Tell everyone on this train I love them’: the meaning of a hero’s final words | Maeve Higgins

After he was stabbed and lay dying on a train, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche said, tell everyone on this train I love them.' I will never forget his words

It was 26 May 2017 on the Portland MAX light rail service when a white supremacist named Jeremy Christian began threatening two teenage girls; one of the girls was black, the other in hijab. Three other men, all strangers on the same train, stood up to Christian, defending and ultimately saving the girls. Christian attacked the three men with a knife, killing 53-year-old Ricky John Best and 23-year-old Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche and injuring Micah David-Cole Fletcher.

As Taliesin was bleeding, another passenger, a woman named Rachel Macy, knelt with him, comforting him and staunching his wounds. Taliesin knew he was dying. Tell everyone on this train I love them", he said to Macy in his final moments.

Maeve Higgins is a Guardian US columnist and the author of the book Tell Everyone on This Train I Love Them