Writing your own obituary

Post date: Jul 11, 2018 8:45:41 AM

'What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly'

Richard Bach, author and philosopher

Imagine that you are attending a funeral. Feel the atmosphere: perhaps a grey, wintry day and gentle rain glistening on a huddle of people predominantly dressed in black, the sombre voice of a priest intoning the last rites as a spade scatters earth and stones on the coffin.

Let your imagination roam free. Maybe the soundtrack of the deceased’s favourite music is playing and a relative sobbing, while others sniff noisily and dab ineffectively with handkerchiefs ... or perhaps there are no regrets and it is a joyful celebration of a life of contribution lived to the full.

Now rewind a few minutes to the service in the church and look into the open coffin ... and see yourself lying there.

What do you think and feel? What obituary would you write for yourself and how would those words compare with how your family, friends and colleagues view your time on this Earth?

This was a fascinating exercise conducted during a Findhorn community workshop a while ago and the unspoken message was simple: ensure that the life you are living is the grandest expression of your highest ideals and how you’d like to be remembered. Today, rather than tomorrow.

Would someone be moved to say: “Geoff had fun up until his very last breath. He sucked the juice out of life and was a free spirit, a loving Dad, Grandad and a true friend of the Earth. He believed that service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth - and his life was a reflection of that.”

The exercise reminded me of the inspiring example of Brooke Astor, New York’s First Lady of Philanthropy who died in 2007 at the age of 105.

By night she reigned over New York society with a disdain for pretension, and by day devoted her time and considerable resources to New York’s unfortunate - for decades she was known as the city’s unofficial first lady.

With a wink and a smile she liked to quote the leading character in Thornton Wilder’s play, The Matchmaker, saying: “Money is like manure; it’s not worth a thing unless it is spread around.”

I was deeply moved by something she wrote entitled When I Go From Here.

WHEN I GO FROM HERE

When I go from here, I want to leave behind me a world that will be richer for the experience of me.

I want creatures – the animals and the birds – to be less afraid of human beings because they have known me, because I have blessed and loved them and, far from doing them any harm, have done them good.

I want to leave trees that are rustling with my thoughts; trees that have heard me speaking to them when we were alone together, trees that, one day long after my form has disappeared, shall still in some mysterious way, cherish in their very beings their secret knowledge of me, so that others who seek shelter from the rain or who seek shade under their branches, shall catch the peace that went out from me.

I want to leave the whole of Nature nearer to the whole of man. I want to store up riches in the wind, and to leave blessings travelling upwards to the stars. I want to leave my peace in the grass. I want the tears that I have shed for the sake of high love to come again in the dew. I want to leave Nature richer for having known me.

I want to leave my fellow man more sure that there is a Divinity that shapes his ends. I want to leave him with the knowledge that death is nothing and life is everything.

When I go from here, I want to leave behind me a deeper sense of God.

Geoff Dalglish