Love Letter to My Life #75: What should be on my tombstone?

“I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.”* Epitaph Challenge

(We know the day we were born, but most of us do not know the day we will die. This love letter to my life is written on the day I've designated as my death day: the 17th of every month, and reminds me to be grateful for my joy-filled life. —Joyce Wycoff)

The subtitle is Robert Frost’s epitaph taken from his poem “The Lesson for Today.” I can imagine most of us having a similar feeling at some point during our lives.

Epitaph Challenge …

Whether you intend to be buried and have a tombstone or a plaque on the wall of the School of Life, people will remember you … for awhile at least. While we’re still breathing in and out, we can influence what they remember … and, we could also craft the epitaph we’d most like … and leave it behind with our final papers. (hint)

So, here’s the challenge: Create the epitaph you would like to leave behind … even if it’s not on a tombstone … or even on a plaque … how you would like to be remembered? Please share in a comment.

(Personally, I do not plan to have a tombstone or be buried, but most likely will die, so I will leave my School of Life plaque in the comments section also.)

A few famous epitaphs

While you’re thinking about what you would like on your tombstone, here are some others to ponder, from witty to micro stories:

• Billy Wilder, “I’m a writer, but then nobody’s perfect.”

• Ludolph van Ceulen, “3.14159265358979323846264338327950288,” the first person to calculate the value of pi to 35 decimal places:

• Jesse James, “Murdered by a traitor and coward whose name is not worthy to appear here”

• Bette Davis, “She did it the hard way”

• Mel Blanc, “That’s all, folks”

• Martin Luther King Jr., “Free at last, Free at last, Thank God Almighty I’m Free at last”

• Jim Morrison, “Truth to your own spirit”

• Floyd Patterson, “A champion always”

• Joe DiMaggio, “Grace, dignity and elegance personified”

• Gracie Allen and George Burns Epitaph: “Together again” 

• Edgar Allan Poe, “Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore’”

  • Pondering: Mrs. Maria Clemm, his mother-in-law, lies upon his right and Virginia Poe, his wife, upon his left, under the monument erected to him in their cemetery.

• Lenny Bruce Epitaph: “Peace at last”

• Leslie Nielsen “Let ’er rip”

  • RIP on a tombstone typically means “rest in peace.” Is this one his final fart joke?

• William Butler Yeats, “Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by!”

• George Washington Carver, “He found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world”

• Fred Korematsu, “A true hero and civil rights activist”

  • The epitaph for him pays tribute to the deceased and provides a history lesson about the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Born in Oakland, Fred wanted only to be treated like every other American. Defying the 1942 order for the internment of Japanese Americans, he stood strong against anti-Asian prejudice in the United States during World War II. He challenged our nation’s conscience, reminding us that we must uphold the rights of our own citizens even as we fight tyranny in other lands. A true hero and civil rights activist, Fred was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in January 1998.

• Leonard Matlovich, “When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”

  • Matlovich was the first gay service member to purposely out himself to the military to fight their ban on homosexuals.

• Andy Warhol, “Figment”

  • “I never understood why when you died, you didn’t just vanish, everything should just keep going on the way it was only you just wouldn’t be there. I always thought I’d like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I’d like it to say ‘figment’.”

John Drinkwater, “In some new brain the sleeping dust will waken…”

• The epitaph of poet John Drinkwater (1882–1937) is taken from his poem “Amaranth.”

  • In some new brain the sleeping dust will waken;
    Courage and love that conquered and were done,
    Called from a night by thought of man forsaken,
    Will know again the gladness of the sun.

• Dr. Robert Muller, “A life spent working for peace.”

  • Dr. Muller spent 40 years working at the UN and left behind an enormous body of writings which have been assembled on a website. The last line on his tombstone reads: “www.RobertMuller.org”.

Two touching epitaphs that seem poignant in this conflicted election cycle:

• Anne Royall, “I pray that the union of these states may be eternal”

  • Pioneering publicist, travel writer, and newspaper editor Anne Royall (1769–1854) was by some accounts the first professional woman journalist in the United States. Born just before America claimed independence from Great Britain, Royall had the success of the young nation on her mind when she died just half a decade before the onset of the Civil War.

• John Minor Botts, “An inflexible friend of the American union”

  • John Minor Botts (1802–1869) was a prominent Unionist in Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War. His gravestone includes an epitaph and a quote, both of which highlight his love of country.

“I know no North, no South, no East, no West.

I only know my country, my whole country, and nothing but my country.”

Starting the Challenge with a few patient friends …

• Barbara Gaughen Muller, “Barbara lived her life for peace, love and joy”

  • While Barbara’s is good and true, if I had to write her epitaph it would be “She always said “Yes!” with enthusiasm.”

• Julie Lopp, “Leave no stone unturned” … (it’s a little more complicated …)

  • Mine should say on the one flat side:

    “Turn over here 👉”

    On the other side:

    “Leave no stone unturned”

• Barbara Harley, “From the farm to better places”

Barbara Harley very wisely reminds me that the tombstone metaphor is wedded in our minds to a church yard cemetery … it could just as well be a plaque for the School of Life. I added her thought into the final edit. Thanks, Barbara.

I’ll close with my favorite, at least at this moment:

William Shakespeare. “Cursed be he that moves my bones”

PS … is it strange that epitaphs don’t end with a period? Is that economizing on the engraver’s time and cost … or is it an underlying message that this really isn’t all there is?

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Special thanks for many of the epitaph examples to Legacy.com.