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If you didn’t think I was an odd duck before, this will probably convince you: I like to read the local obituaries.
With the exception of the occasional heartbreaking childhood cancer or teenage suicide, the majority of the obituaries share the stories of lives well lived. A few examples (I removed some of the more specific information):
John, 95: “He was an avid reader and also enjoyed his extensive collection of old movies and many genres of music. He was an active member [in his church] and deeply valued these relationships.”
Stanley, 80: “He will always be remembered as a giver, mentor and support to those who knew and loved him. And besides his passion for his career, he could always be found on the golf course with good friends…Stanley was a devoted and loving husband, father and grandpa and was the foundation of his family. He was always there to support his family and friends, even if just to share a joke to make you smile.”
Barbara, 91: “Bobbie’s life was characterized by her strong Christian faith, devotion to family and her compassionate servant’s heart. She was active in her community throughout her life, serving [her local church]… Bobbie served for many years in various community and civic organizations. She was selfless, content in all circumstances and experienced great joy in caring for family, friends and those in need.”
Reading about these lovely people always makes me introspective: What will my legacy be? What will my children write about me?
Those behaviors have to be cultivated today. If I want to be remembered as “content in all circumstances” like Barbara, I need to practice that right now. If I want to be known as deeply valuing relationships like John, I need to act like that today. An important reminder to focus on what matters most.
Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!
Around here, abundance looks like…
+ homemade decorations for the 4th of July. I love the kids’ creativity.
+ fresh produce all over the kitchen counter! Our onions and potatoes are ready and the tomatoes are ripening like crazy. Time to include those ingredients in the meal plan.
+ selling four unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan. This week, I sold one pair of jeans and three books. After shipping and fees, I made $9.64!
Reading //
- The Greatest Gifts We Can Give Our Teens from Kathryn Whitaker at Mothering Spirit // “Please Jesus, let them make mistakes, I want to yell. By ‘helicoptering’ faith formation and mowing down all obstacles, we are preventing our children from the (often painful) experience of growing up and owning their own faith. The two greatest things we can give our children is the space to fail and a community to love them through it.”
- I Regret to Inform You That We Will All Grow Old, Infirm, and Unattractive from Freddie deBoer // A little crass, but interesting. The comments were interesting too. (And the whole conversation makes me think of one of my favorite books, Being Mortal by Atul Gawande.)
I personally think that another influence lies in the bizarre modern ideology that insists that everything that people have always done is so much harder now, against all evidence. There’s this pervasive cultural attitude that everything is so. damn. hard. now, that human beings have never faced so much difficulty just getting by. This notion is bipartisan, though I do mostly associate it with left-of-center culture, which for the record is politically ruinous. The reality is that it isn’t, actually, uniquely hard to live now, and if you are lucky enough to live as a healthy person in the middle class or above in the United States, you enjoy a life that 99.99% of human beings in history would look on with incredible envy. Which is not to say that life isn’t hard; life is very hard, for big-picture reasons that I’ve laid out many times. It’s just that life was always hard. It’s hard to be a person. Our existence is a cosmic accident, our lives are outside of our own control, and we inevitably die, so of course life is hard. But it was always hard, and that which is hardest about being a human is that which never changes. There’s nothing special about now. It’s just that a lot of people have made the bizarre choice to promulgate an elite culture in which everyone complains all the time about how hard everything is, to socially deleterious effect. (And, for the record, the only real escape from the hardships of life is to find the dignity to bear them without showy complaint, which is the opposite of what everyone is doing.)
New Additions to The List //
- The Shoes of the Fisherman by Morris L. West // Thanks for the recommendation, Melisa!
- John Fisher and Thomas More: Keeping Their Souls While Losing Their Heads by Robert J. Conrad Jr.
- A Daughter’s Love: Thomas More and His Dearest Meg by John Guy
Watching/Listening //
- How to Make Architecture Great Again! Interview with Michael Diamant from Rewire the West // A really interesting conversation about classical vs. modern architecture. I think I want to be a classical architect when I grow up.
- The Day Stockholm Became a Syndrome from Best Documentary // Fair warning: there is quite a bit of language, but I found it fascinating from a psychological standpoint.
- The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis: An Interview with Dr. Jason Baxter from The Commonplace // I LOVED this.
- Session Three of Wit, Learning, and Virtue: The Legacy of Civil Servant, Thomas More course from Belmont Abbey College
- Inferno Cantos 13-18 of 100 Days of Dante from Baylor Honors College // So good!
Hi Ashley,
Love your reflection on legacy. I’ve been pondering that myself because a few months back, we were at a pancake breakfast at our parish, and one of the young ladies serving had this on the back of her t-shirt (and being the odd duck that I am, I had to copy it down):
“What you leave behind is not engraved in stone, but woven into the lives of others.” – Pericles
Here’s another book I think you’ll love, recommended to me by my friend Kate who has her own home library: One Poor Scruple by Josephine Ward. It’s somewhat similar to Brideshead Revisited, and the author is the mother of Maisie Ward of Sheed and Ward Publishing in England. (Maisie is an excellent author in her own right.)
Have a blessed week!
Fellow odd duck Melisa
Thank you so much for your book recommendations! I haven’t heard about this one either and can’t wait to track down a copy.
A very important question indeed
Yes!
I also read local obituaries. It’s like reading history. Obituaries are also great for genealogy. Thanks for sharing.
Reading history – YES! That’s such a great description.
A majority of my anxiety when I first started therapy was around the idea that I was going to die someday. I worked through it with my counselor and we came up with a question: Knowing you are going to die one day, what do you want to do about it?
I thought on it long and hard and at the end of the day, it was really simple. I didn’t have a bucket list of things to accomplish or do or see. I decided that for the rest of my days (however long or short that amount of time) all I want to do is “Love my people”. When my loved ones speak at my funeral, or write up my obituary, all I care is that they were assured of my love.
It’s crazy how deciding this legacy allowed me to leave my anxiety around death behind.
Love that. I very much feel the same.