Will You Be Happy With Your Obituary?

If you unexpectedly had the chance to peek at your obituary, would you read it?

Think about it: Your time on earth is done. Here’s the lasting impression you left on others.

What do you anticipate your family and loved ones will write about you? If you’re honest with yourself, are you proud of what you think they will say? Will you be happy to read what your loved ones remember about you?

Do you envision the tribute to your life painting you as a nice person who would do anything for anyone? Will it say you were a loving and forgiving person? Will it recall your trusting relationship with God, and depict your faith as devotion others should strive to attain?

Or will your obituary be short and to-the-point – because maybe you didn’t give people a chance to know you, or you weren’t always the best version of yourself? If you’re imagining something you aren’t exactly proud of, is it enough to inspire change within you?

An exercise journalism students are often tasked with is to write their own obituary. Slightly awkward and morbid, I agree, but it genuinely opens your eyes. If you’re truly honest with yourself, you begin to see yourself the way others do. It’s clarifying, really, and if you’re up for the challenge I suggest you try it.

Last year, I read an obituary in the Evansville Courier & Press for a local woman. The tribute her family wrote in honor of her life left little to the imagination.

By the time I finished reading it, I was teary-eyed from laughter and sadness. Whew – what a woman! I was sad I never had the privilege of knowing her.

The obituary stated she didn’t want a funeral service, but her surviving family members encouraged well-wishers to write a note of farewell on a can of beer and drink it in her honor. “And remember to live life to the fullest and laugh, laugh, and then laugh some more,” they added.

That’s the kind of obituary I want my family to write about me, one that makes strangers wish they had been a part of my life or at least had crossed paths with me. I’m not naïve; I know I’m not perfect, and of course there are things I can change to be a better version of myself.

You see, there are many things in this life that are out of our control – the weather, for instance, the family we’re born into, or the color of our eyes. But the type of person you are is up to you. Only you can decide and achieve who you want to be, despite the circumstances or cards you’ve been dealt.

It’s up to us to be someone worth remembering well. It’s not always easy to be the good person, and we will falter, but like everything in life put your faith in God.

Despite the torture and abuse Jesus endured on His last day on earth as a man – epitomized in the Stations of the Cross – he still loves each of us so much he died on the cross for our sins.

Critics say people can never change, and while it’s difficult sometimes to believe, God never loses faith in any of us. His love is without fail.

 “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ [Jesus] died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Besides, I choose to believe it’s never too late to become who you want to be and who God created you to be. So if you’re not happy with what you imagine your obituary may say, change your narrative now.

After all, don’t you want your obituary to be one people read and wish they had met you? And along the way, don’t forget to “laugh, laugh, and then laugh some more.”