What Will They Say? Reflections from a Funeral Pew

I'm writing this fresh from a funeral, the weight of mortality still heavy in my bones. Funerals have always struck me differently – they're not just moments of goodbye, but mirrors forcing us to look at our own lives.

Today, like many times before, I sat and listened as family and friends painted portraits of the deceased with their words. They recounted moments of shared joy, pain, love – weaving tapestries of a life now complete. As they spoke, my incredibly active imagination could almost see their stories come to life: the newly dead walking, laughing, loving, exactly as the speakers described them.

But something else always happens to me during these services. As I sit there, my mind begins to wander to my own eventual funeral. What stories will they tell about me? Which version of me will live in their memories? Most importantly – am I living a life worthy of beautiful eulogies?

Sometimes, depending on whose funeral I'm attending, this reflection hits differently. If it's a family friend or someone I knew well, I often feel a pang of regret that I didn't experience them the same way the speakers did – that I missed opportunities to know them more deeply. And at funerals of relative strangers, as I listen to loving tributes, I find myself taking inventory of my own life's impact.

Here's what I know for certain: death will pay each of us a visit. While I no longer fear death itself, I do worry about its timing. I worry about it arriving before I've maximized my potential, before I've lived my greatest possible life.

So let me ask you, dear reader: how have you been living? If death knocked on your door this instant, would you hesitate to answer? Not from fear, but from the knowledge that you haven't been true to yourself yet?

Pause here. Take a breath. Release it slowly. Sit with yourself – truly sit with yourself – and consider who you are. Or at least who you want to be. Then simply become that person.

Simply be.

We don't have as much time as we think. Our lives are swift and fleeting. Even 120 years would be a blink in the cosmic eye. I can't count how many elders have told me, "I don't know where time went" or "One minute I was a teenager, the next I was in my fifties."

I don't know how long I have until death's visit, but I know this: I want to maximize every moment, enjoy every breath, and live authentically while I still can draw breath in good health.

Yes, the world – or perhaps the people in it, or the universe itself, or for some believers, God – throws trials and tribulations our way. These challenges have a dangerous way of poisoning our vision, of trying to kill the dreamer within us. Life's experiences often attempt to snuff out our internal light prematurely.

But here's what keeps me going: the certainty of death's visit. Strange, isn't it? The very thing that could paralyze us with fear instead becomes a clarion call to live fully. We can't avoid death's eventual arrival – neither you nor I can change that. But what we can do – what we must do – is live as greatly, authentically, and amazingly as possible while we're blessed to be in the land of the living, regardless of the circumstances we face.

This isn't about legacy or reputation. It's about living so truly that when death finally knocks, we can open the door without hesitation, knowing we didn't just exist – we lived.

A Note to the Reader: The next time you attend a funeral, listen not just to the stories being told, but to the whispers of your own heart. What stories are you creating today that others will tell tomorrow?