Last night I dreamt I was driving my car down a crowded highway, and just as in my waking hours, l was in a hurry to get wherever I was going. In the movie in my head, I heard myself say:
“I need to go write my obituary!”
I woke up abruptly, and after commenting on how bizarre that sounded, I realized upon further reflection that I’d probably like to do that here too: we’d like to write the story that people tell about us after we’re gone.
Anyone who’s ever had the task of crafting an obituary for someone they love, knows what a daunting task it is to try and succinctly summarize in words, a vast, sprawling, fully word-defying life; to capture in a few sentences or a few minutes—a story that would take decades to properly retell.
In the wake of someone’s passing, we who remain have the job of memorializing them; of preserving their legacy. We become the chief custodians of their memory. To a large degree, we determine the parts of their lives that live on—which may or may not be what they intended to survive them.
This means, as much as we might like to believe we know precisely how we will be remembered after we’re gone, we probably don’t.
One day (hopefully a long time from now) a few people who love us and who deeply grieve our loss, will gather to write our obituary, to compose our eulogy, to immortalize us in a gathering of both those we’d have invited—and those we’d probably wish hadn’t shown.
People will speak and post on social media their funny, poignant anecdotes of their interactions with us, the things about us that stick—and thus will begin our mythology, to which we will have no more to do with. Our legacies will be largely out of our hands.
And since we can’t write our obituaries and we can’t eulogize ourselves, and since we can’t choose what about our lives will outlive us—the best we can do is to leave the legacy we desire now, in this day, this moment, with this breath.
We can live in such a way that the people around us know what matters to us, how we feel about them, what we want our lives to say after we’re gone. We can speak every word of kindness and truth within us, squeeze out every bit of passion and meaning we are able to, obey every wild, creative muse we hear calling us—and then rest in that. We can endeavor to be fully present; to give our best to our children and our spouses and our friends and those who give our days purpose.
Singer David Cassidy’s final words upon leaving this life last week were, “So much wasted time.” We’ll never know exactly what specific wastefulness he was referring to, but I imagine if you and I were to suddenly face our final moments right now, we’d all instantly realize where we’ve squandered daylight, what we’ve let slip through our fingers, how often we pissed away priceless gifts of space and time and people we’d been blessed with.
The challenge and the invitation we have on this side of our obituaries, is to write as clear and beautiful a story we can and to trust that is enough.
No, we’re not able to compose our memory in writing, but we are able to live this day well, and to let that be the legacy we leave to those who will retell our story.
Don’t worry about your obituary.
Go write your life today.
