Dear Editor,
Recently, I read an obituary in which the author identified herself as the deceased. My reaction to this autobiographical voice from beyond the grave was, “How did you know when, where, and how you would die?”
Writing your own obituary is becoming popular. Articles and books extol how writing about your life for people to read after you die can change your life before you die. Also, you may be the most qualified person to translate your life’s resume into a few paragraphs.
While you may want the person who knows you best to write your obituary to ensure its accuracy and completeness, this does not apply to your eulogy.
An obituary may tell people that you lived, but it is the eulogy that tells them how well. The person who gives your eulogy should have had a deep and meaningful relationship with you. They need to share personal stories and memories that reflect your life and character. Your eulogy is a commemoration and a celebration of your life, not a recitation of your curriculum vitae for a job application.
If you ask someone to give your eulogy, then will you also suggest what they say about you? If the purpose of a eulogy is to honor the life of the deceased, then by selecting the person to give your eulogy and specifying what should be in it, are you not really honoring yourself?
A close friend and I joke about writing each other’s eulogies because we know each other like no one else does. However, my friend says that the audience would not believe what he would say, because other people have seen me very differently than he has. Sounds like fun, I say. But then I will not be there to enjoy it.
And that is precisely the point of a eulogy. The deceased do not hear their eulogy. The words may be about the dead, but they are for the living. When we are dead, our thoughts and feelings will have ceased. We cannot experience death in life, so why try to experience life in death.
The best way to determine what will be said about you after you die is how you live before you died. If you touch as many lives as you can, and nurture diverse relationships, then you will be giving somebody something meaningful to say in your eulogy.
Sincerely,
Larry Kraft, North Springfield, Vt.
Kraft’s play “Waiting for A Eulogy” was presented last summer as a staged reading by the Springfield Community Players.