What if you had a memorial service before you passed away?

He cannot read his tombstone when he’s dead.

Tell them now, while they can still hear you. I earlier referenced a poem that is all the more appropriate today (Do it Now, by Berton Braley). But not any easier.

How could you truly tell someone what you feel at their funeral … before their funeral? That’s morbid, right? Eerie, spooky, yucky. As my nieces would say, “Eeuw.”

But hey, it’s worth the discussion.

If my dad could have been there today, I’m sure he would have been speechless. He would have said, “Are they talking about me? It can’t be. Who are they talking about?”

The influence he had on others was truly astounding. People coming out of the woodwork to share things about dad that we had no idea of–I’m pretty sure he had no idea of. I’ll write more about them at some point, but the lesson is to not let these things wait until such an event. As the cowboy says, “He cannot read his tombstone when he’s dead.”

No matter how wonderful (or terrible) the tombstone, he can’t read it. What if you wrote out the tombstone epitaph before he passed away? What if you told him what you truly thought before it was too late?

It all sounds simple, it sounds like something you should of course do. But do we do it? What can we do to make sure we say what we need to say? It’s simple, of course, you just need to do it. You need to take it into your own hands to make that day–how about today, for example–the day when they realize that you love them or have learned from them or are proud of them.