One day, either we like it or not; are prepared for it or not, we will die and actually “that makes us the lucky one” as Richard Dawkins would say. He would continue, and why should he complain about death–it should be celebrated.
And I, write to celebrate death. Ok, maybe not literally. i don’t want to die yet but i asked myself one question: “If I die today, what will be said of my life?”
Everyone should leave a monument behind in the recollection of their life by others.
There’s something very much amiss about one that is not missed when they die.
For our certainty of death,
A good character is the best tombstone.
Those who loved you and were helped by you
will remember you when forget-me-nots wither;
In every doing,
Carve your name on hearts and not on marble.
So live a life whose memory of are green
when the grass grows on your grave and wither.
Let us hope there will be something better
to be said about us than of the man whose epitaph is:
“Here lies a man who did no good,
And if he lives no one knows;
Where he’s gone, and how he is,
Nobody knows and Nobody cares.”
As much as that might be said of a prize;
we all strive for importance in ourselves.
Some are nothing better than walking bees while they live;
when death comes, they deserve to run out of notice.
However, a plainly-written tombstone is better than downright lying.
Why put flattery on a grave?
It is like pouring melted butter down a sink.
“Here lies the body of him
who has lived a goodly life
A life well spent
May his soul Rest In Peace.”
Flattery, like pouring water through a basket.
Where do they bury the bad people?
Everywhere,
in the best of places, in high places
they seem all to have been the best of folks.
Some of them were so precious good,
it is no wonder they died: they were too fine to live in such a wicked world as this.
Better give bread to the poor than stones to the dead.
Better kind words to the living than fine speeches over the grave.
Some of the fancy stuff on monuments is enough to make a dead man blush.
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