If I did not believe in the sovereignty of God (and I do), I might think that I was born in the wrong decade. For as long as I can remember, I have been an old soul. In fact, when I was probably 13 or 14, a family member said that I was the youngest eighty-year-old he had ever met.

He was not wrong. 

My interests have always skewed toward things of the past—antiques, big band music, black and white movies, classic cars, history in general. 

I have also had, since my earliest days, a grand appreciation for those Scripture calls “the silver-haired,” those, in my case, who were members of the Greatest Generation. It has been my privilege to count among my friends veterans of the Second World War, Holocaust survivors, and at least one Rosie the Riveter.

My friendships with these people were special. While I could commiserate with my peers about homework and problems in our social lives, my friendships with members of the Greatest Generation brought something no peer friendship could: perspective. 

These friends, who had come of age during the Great Depression, who had been sent into Hell-on-Earth war zones, who had come home to build families and a nation, these were people with experiences that brought my “big problems” down to their proper scale.

More than once, when faced with what seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, I have heard the counsel of a seasoned friend echoing in my mind. “Throughout your life,” wrote one of them, “you will have many successes and ‘also-rans’. Take them all in stride and thank God for all of them.”

Another, a survivor of the Holocaust, advised me on the matter of happiness. “I survived the Holocaust, and I still smile,” he said. “Why can’t everyone else?”

Talk about a change in perspective.

Of course, the downside to having friends much older than oneself is that the friendships are relatively brief. When I visit the cemetery, I do sometimes feel like the youngest eighty-year-old ever, as I walk from grave to grave, remembering cherished friends, an experience many my age will not have until years down the road.

Even in death, though, the lives these people lived offer a realignment to my own myopic thinking. As a 30-something, my focus is largely on the immediate—buying a house, caring for my family, mowing the lawn, taking the car in for an oil change. All necessary and good things.

But the realization that these friends are now in eternity, their bodies buried beneath the sod, causes me to consider not only where they are, but where I am and where I want to be. 

In five or six decades, when I am the silver-haired—or, more likely, the no-haired—what do I want to be able to look back on? What do I want to be true of who I am and what I have done with my vaporous life?

Moses, that great emancipator and law-giver of the Israelites, must have had this same thought in mind when he wrote Psalm 90:

“The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away…So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:10, 12).
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I am only a few decades in, and already I’ve had my share of lessons learned the hard way. But I am thankful for the perspective and wisdom that I’ve gleaned from my older friends. Indeed, the Lord has used their lives to teach me to number my days, so that I might gain a heart of wisdom.

In February of this year, I was given a difficult writing assignment. It wasn’t that I knew nothing about the topic; rather, it was that I knew too much about it.

I was tasked with writing my grandmother’s obituary.

It was in the process of writing it that I realized not only is an obituary a sacred document, it’s also a surprisingly difficult thing to put together. A writing prompt in high school or college is challenging enough. We are given something like, In 600 words, tell about a moment that changed your life. Or, Write 1,000 words on why you are most qualified for an internship with our organization.

It’s altogether different and far more solemn when the prompt is: In 500 words or less, write a biographical sketch of a 90-year-old woman whose life touched all who knew her. Make sure to include not only her work history and hobbies, but also the principles that guided her life, the love she showered on her grandkids, and the memorable aroma of her house after she baked chocolate chip cookies.

Oh, and don’t forget to make it clear and concise, while capturing the essence of who this lady was, what made her tick, and what she lived for. And can you have it to us by 3 p.m.?

That’s a tall order. It’s also a necessary one.

Although incredibly brief — relative to a human lifespan — an obituary is, literarily speaking, a capstone to a person’s earthly life. While family members and close friends will undoubtedly remember their loved ones in innumerable, intimate ways, an obituary, in most cases, is a person’s last public testament to their temporal life and labors. It is a reminder to the community-at-large that this person lived and made their mark, no matter how grand or humble that mark may have been.

What a shame, then, it is to read the obituary that simply reads: John Smith was born in 1942. He died on Sunday. Cremation has taken place.

While I realize that some folks are very private, in my opinion, Mr. Smith and those who knew him deserve more than that kind of a tribute. He was a man made in the image of God, a man who was loved. He made a living. His life touched others in various ways. He had a personality. People remember him.

Surely that life is worth putting down in print. Poet Linda Ellis in her oft-used poem “The Dash” writes:
“I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend. He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning...to the end. He noted that first came the date of birth and spoke of the following date with tears, but he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years.

“For that dash represents all the time they spent alive on earth and now only those who loved them know what that little line is worth.”

The obituary is an opportunity to say, “This is what Mr. Smith did with his dash. This is who Mr. Smith was.”

While Socrates may have been right when he said that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” I also think it axiomatic that the well-lived life is a story worth telling and telling well.

​In journalism school, we are taught that everything is a potential story, because everyone, no matter their station in life, has a story to tell. An obituarist, then, ought to strive, as feeble as their attempt may seem, to write well the story the person left behind.

Yes, tell us when they were born and when they died. Tell us to whom they were related. Let us know where we can send flowers or a gift in their memory. But don’t stop there.
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Who was this person, really? Tell the truth. Did they have struggles in their life? If so, how did they handle them? We know where they worked; but did they enjoy the work they did? Who did they love? How did they demonstrate their love to those people? Who loved them?

The person charged with writing another’s obituary ought to approach their task with some sense of trepidation — I know I did. After all, they have the job of reducing a lifetime into just one, maybe two column inches.

Being made in the image of God, I think, requires not only leading a life well-lived, but after life on Earth is over, to have a life well written.