HOW TO ATTEND YOUR OWN MEMORIAL SERVICE WITHOUT HAVING TO DIE

                  Have you ever wondered what people will say at your memorial service? 

            No?  Me either.  But I think I just found out. 

            Two nights ago, my husband and two dear friends threw a retirement party for me.   It was lovely and overwhelming.   Amazing friends.  Amazing food.  A blur of greetings and well wishes. 

            Toward the end of the evening my friend Noelle, a school teacher, used her professional skills to quiet the din in the room, and then invited people to speak.  Some of the speakers had apparently been lined up in advance, some not.  I sat in a chair and listened to people say lovely things about me, things that are generally not said this side of a memorial service.  

            And I didn’t have to die.   

            It was kind of an out-of-body experience, at once humbling and mortifying.  I was deeply moved by the love and friendship in the room, even as I struggled to recognize the person being lauded.     

           

            I tell you this not to toot my own horn.  Your friends would do the same.  (And like mine, they would – given the occasion – refrain from mentioning your less adorable qualities.)

            I write here to share what I understood while surrounded by friends on Saturday night and while thinking about the dear ones who were unable to be present or who live too far away to have been invited.  Here it is:  The measure of my life so far is not in my accomplishments.—not in the appellate briefs that I wrote over the course of my legal career or in the weekly garden column that I wrote for several years or in the degrees that I have earned. 

            It is in my relationships.  It is in the people who surrounded me on Saturday night and those who were unable to be there.  My book group.  My writing group.  My co-workers.  My fellow students.  My husband.  My amazing daughters.  Their father.  The friends who have been with me for years and those who entered my life more recently.  The people who have seen me through and given my life meaning.  Without these people none of the “accomplishments” would have been possible, nor would they have mattered a bit.

            When I was in college, my father (an engineer) lamented my choice of English as my major.  “But, it’s not productive,” he would say.  He was right.  And I didn’t care.  For better or worse, I have always valued connection (whether with dead authors or living people) over productivity, and Saturday night I felt the rewards of this approach.  I could feel the roundness and fullness of my life.  I could feel the intersecting currents of my connections buoying me up and the questions about whether I could have been more productive or more ambitious floating away.

            I am so very grateful to know that I have friends and loved ones who will see me through as I move forward into the next chapter of my life. 

            My cup runneth over.    

   Photo by Santiago Lacarta on Unsplash