Tips for a Happy Life….from the Writer about Death
Death should be a little bit of a stunner – it should wake us up to how we really want to live
In 1996, Heather Lende was asked to write an obituary for her local paper in Alaska….20 years on, she has become an unofficial bereavement counsellor for the town of Haines. This is an edited summary of the interview from the BBC online magazine
Lende’s five tips for a happy life
- Pretty good is better than perfect
- Draw lines in the sand so you can move them
- Send a forwarding address – Lende wrote about a man who lost touch with his family for 37 years after moving from the east coast of the US to Alaska
- Tell them you’ll miss them when they’re gone
- Be kind – that’s what everybody needs more than anything
Regular readers of this blog will know that obituaries are something of an obsession – nothing morbid, in fact quite the opposite, as far as I am concerned obituaries are a celebration of life.
Lende’s experiences as an obituary writer shine a light on some more unusual situations:
1. Asked to write an obituary for somebody who was alive
It was really sad and also really remarkable, to see someone so prepared for their own ending. I wouldn’t necessarily say at peace, but just recognising the reality of her situation
2. People who weren’t very popular
“I try very hard to find somebody that will say something nice about them…..they may have been very good at their job, or built something in town that everybody recognises as a building we all use and like. But I tend then not to embellish a whole lot
Acknowledging faults in the people she writes about can be a good thing – a reminder that the living still have an opportunity to put things right. “We’re still a work in progress,” she says.
It’s all about relationships
When asked to sum up what makes a good life, Lende reckons it comes down to one thing – relationships.
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