The Cemetery

As a part of one of my classes last week, we walked to a cemetery on the Hill, and were given half an hour to walk in silence and think. Peter told us, "Reflect upon the epitaphs, and take some time to think about what you would want yours to say. Think about the way you want to be remembered, the impact you want to have on the world." It was a beautiful day, clear and sharp, but not too cold. Crunchy leaves gently suffocated the ground of the cemetery in a blanket of gold and red, and the thick old trees made the space within the black iron gates feel contained and separate from the rest of the city.

I was expecting to see headstones engraved with elegant, meaningful quotes, hoping to write them down and get some ideas for what I would have liked mine to say. There were two that I loved:

"He had a good run."

"It is hard to live without her. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done." A 30-year-old mother of three.

But I was surprised, because the majority of the headstones I saw had nothing like this. There were no quotes or thoughtful summations of life accomplishments. Instead, I noticed  that most commonly, epitaphs consisted of the names. Most headstones had the name of the deceased person and the name of their spouse. They were the "husband of:" or "wife of:" somebody. In the end their lives were defined, not by words or quotes, but by the people they chose to love. After we have been dead for so long that nobody will ever know who we were, we will be known only for the person, and people, we decided to spend our lives with. I liked that.

It turns out that the only thing that really matters is people. The most important choice you get in life is a choice in who the people will be who define your life and shape the person you become.

I won't spend time trying to think of a poem or beautiful quote for my epitaph, rather, I'm going to try to fill my life with people whose names I would gladly have engraved forever next to mine. In a hundred years, when some young girl in a college class is walking through my cemetery, who do I want her to know I belonged to?