Wissot: How do you want to be remembered?
I recently attended an 80th birthday celebration at Donovan Pavilion for a man who is a friend of mine here in Vail and Denver where we both reside in the same condo building. To say he is remarkable is to greatly understate all he has accomplished as he enters the ninth decade of his life. In addition to a stellar career in business and finance, he’s a philanthropist, community leader and accomplished athlete. He and his wife are superb skiers and travel the world as adventure-loving cyclists.
Toward the end of the party, time was scheduled for family members and friends to come on stage to share their feelings for him. Most moving were the stories told by stepchildren of his who spoke of how he helped them get into college, navigate turbulent times in their adolescence and be there when they needed him most. By the time they were finished, it was clear that he hadn’t treated these children, now adults, as anything less than his own sons and daughters. He wanted for them the long and happy lives that any parent should want for their children. It was also clear that his stepchildren didn’t see him as their stepfather. Dad was who he was to them.
I knew very little about the intimate details of my friend’s life and was overwhelmed with admiration. I thought that none of his accomplishments in life could be more important and rewarding than his success as a father. It also seemed to me to be a wonderful way to be remembered. This man is a real mensch, which in Yiddish roughly translates to a person who achieves worldly success but doesn’t sell his or her soul to get there.
I left the party pondering the question: “How do I want to be remembered?” I’ve been both a father and stepfather. It would be great if my children and stepchildren had the kind of respect and admiration for me that my friend’s children expressed for him. I can’t expect that from mine because I didn’t prioritize family over work. I wasn’t there for my kids the way my friend was. One can’t expect to be remembered for the good he did when he didn’t do it.
How we are remembered should only matter to us while we are still alive. Once we’re dead, who we were is determined by how people choose to remember us. They remember the best and worst based on their experiences with us. I really don’t care what people think about me after I die and function as ashes in an urn or dinner for worms in an earthen grave.
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I’m not a big fan of the obituary pages in the paper, even though I check them each morning to see if my name is listed. When that time comes, I will immediately cancel my plans for that day and every day afterward. I find obituaries benevolently distorted because every one is filled with effusive accolades about the deceased. Obituaries masquerade as hagiography where the people memorialized approximate the spiritual grandeur of Saint Francis of Assisi and Mother Theresa.
If you want to tell people how you would realistically like to be remembered, you might consider writing your own eulogy and inviting family and friends to a mock funeral service. The only person who speaks is you. You share the parts of your life that make you most and least proud. The more honest you are, the more the audience will have candid input on what your life has meant to you.
Please do your mock funeral before cognitive decline or some debilitating disease makes your farewell testimony impossible. Certainly do it by the time you reach 80, a birthday I will be celebrating in January. You don’t get healthier with age. You get older with age. If you got healthier with age you wouldn’t die and you’d never have to worry about being remembered. It would be impossible to get rid of you.
Jay Wissot is a resident of Denver and Vail. Email him at jayhwissot@mac.com.
