Write Your On Obituary; Choose Your Own Picture: Sunday musings…9/29/2024
1 Newspaper. While I am certainly not above whining if my morning newspapers arrive in time for dinner, or Heaven forbid are totally AWOL, I do wish to give a virtual (and most assuredly unheard) huzzah to both of the folks who brought my Sunday tomes this AM. Pouring rain. Each paper double wrapped in plastic.
That there’s just nice peopling.
2 Mugwump. Fence-sitter or fence-sitting. British word. I know we Americans speak English, just like the Brits.
Sometimes they just do it with a bit more style, ya know?
3 Anniversary. It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve had a chance to sit down on a Sunday and empty out my internal hard drive by musing. Missed writing about my 39th Wedding Anniversary! Beth and I were on the road for my nieces wedding in Bar Harbor Maine. Lovely place, that. Bar Harbor. Despite the fact that we have a number of places that we each wish to see for the first time, I think Beth and I agree that the coast of Maine was unexpectedly spectacular in all respects.
We plan to find a reason to return, for sure.
39 years married. 42 together. What a ride! I know I have written about this in the past, but we get asked all the time if there is a secret to our marriage. To our love. We have two, neither of which is all that complex, and at least for us, neither of which feels or felt all that difficult over the years. Marriage is not a 50/50 proposition, it’s 100/100; both partners make a primary commitment to the marriage. Never stop courting. Beginning when our firstborn was still a baby we have been on at least one date every week. One night at least, when we are simply two people in love, together, doing the stuff that people do when they are in love. Remember, the honeymoon isn’t over until you say it is!
I do so love you, Dollie.
4 Obituary. James R. Hagerty is the obituary writer/editor for the Wall Street Journal. Once upon a time he wrote a moving opinion piece about the value of writing your own obit. I think he may have included his most recent personal effort writing his own, but my memory may be foggy. No matter. Somewhere I wrote up a draft of my own which is long lost by now, although I did choose the picture I’d like included if I should depart in the nearish future.
Hagerty didn’t give any specific instructions on the picture thing, but the one I’m thinking about really reminds me of what I think I look like at this stage in life.
Writing in this week’s Sunday Times Opinion section Kelly McMasters sorta one-ups Hagerty in her piece: “Why I Write My Obituary Every Year”. It’s a gem of a piece, written around a tight prompt and literally brimming with delicious word nuggets that describe her rationale and her process. “Reflecting on your life isn’t as maudlin as it may seem.” Some of her autobiobituaries were little more than an accounting of the life lived, the most recent iteration simply an update of the previous year’s effort. After particularly unimpressive years she admitted to a bit of embellishment, inventing “facts” that would surely occur if only she lived long enough for them to make it into her last final word. It’s a funny little quirk, that: an aspirational obituary. A forward looking, backward glance.
Ms. McMasters quotes the Times reporter Margalit Fox from the documentary “Obit”: Obituaries have next to nothing to do with death and absolutely everything to do with life. McMasters: “It seems dreadfully unfair that we wait until after our deaths to write them and never get to read them ourselves. Writing your obituary while you’re still alive can offer clarity about your life and, mercifully, if you find something lacking, you still have time to revise.”
I really like this. As easy as it is for me to do most of the writing in which I indulge, I found it terrifically difficult to write the obituaries for my Dad and then my Mom, even though I knew exactly what I wanted them to say. The process was equal parts heartbreaking and gut-wrenching, so heavy was the weight carried while writing those final chapters. Perhaps writing my own might ease the pain that a loved one may feel if they were so chosen, even if my effort is just an outline for how my people wish to remember me rather than the last version of how I remembered myself.
Living is so much more than simply being alive. More than just not dying today. I was totally taken by surprise by Ms. McMasters’ piece today, and I’m not nearly well enough prepared to update my obituary in time for “Sunday musings…”, at least not this week. I don’t know exactly when I will do so, or if I will try to do it every year, but reading this piece was one of those times when I totally and completely got the author’s perspective, and felt like she knew I was here and was gently encouraging me to listen, to think about more than staying alive.
“[The] obituary exercise taught me the practice and value of holding death close, so I could remember to live.”
I’ll see you next week…
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 29th, 2024 at 4:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.