Don't we all have a wish to be be remembered well after we are gone? The people I admire and love the most are the people who ask difficult questions, who struggle with life. A friend of mine asked me recently to write her obituary. (She's not dying, nor is she elderly). She said, "I just want to see what you'll write."
I am honored and yet I feel a sense of trepidation about the entire thing. How can one write an obituary for someone who gets to read it? What should be included in a good obituary? I have a lot of questions about the entire endeavor, honestly.
I was reading CNN.com today, as I often do, and I came across the write up of the death of former U.S. poet laureate, Stanley Kunitz, at the age of 100. You can read it yourself by clicking here.
It is a beautiful summing up of a life well lived. Born in tragedy, (his father's suicide when Kunitz himself was still in his mother's belly), he became a writer who valued community in the arts, won a Pulitzer for his work, shared his love for the arts with others, and was a man who stuck by his principles.
How can you ask for more in an obituary? Or a life?
2 comments:
I can't imagine being able to write anything remotely sensible with that kind of pressure. (Especially after being previously identified as a 'writer'- that must have been awful).
Oh, by the way- Benjamin Britten composed the opera "Paul Bunyan". The libretto was written by W. H. Auden. Yes, that W. H. Auden. I've just now learned that Auden's initials stand for Wystan Hugh. That is my trivia for the day, I guess.
I'm glad you gave the request some thought. Write it and put it away and some day I'll get to read it...before the time slips away.
Post a Comment