YOU HAVEN'T LIVED until you've experimented with writing your own obituary. It may help you find out something about your values - like what you think is really important in life. It could also reveal fears or concerns about various methods of dying.
It so happens that Lesa Love asked her junior high keyboarding students in Syracuse, Utah, to read some obituaries in the newspaper and then write their own.The result was intriguing.
Most of the students predicted strange, abrupt deaths for themselves, suggesting the influence of the world's problems on their young lives. Besides, they are still in that crazy, immortal stage when they can't yet conceive of old age catching up with them.
Many also are entertaining ambitious but admirable fantasies in which they make enduring contributions to society.
Kami Hyde's was my favorite:
"Kami died when the Iraqis bombed her house. They were furious at her, because she captured Saddam Hussein. She was 110 years old . . . She discovered the cure for cancer at 22, and performed the first operation on a blind person that gave them total sight back.
She also discovered a new island in the Pacific Ocean . . . Kami liked to bungee jump, sky dive and snorkel.
She is most remembered for discovering a solution to pollution. She invented a machine that turned dirty air into clean air.
She also discovered a solution to the destruction of the rain forest. She invented a liquid that you put on the seeds of the trees. Then they will grow to full size in a week. She was an amazing woman!"
Jennifer Bangerter predicted her shocking own death from a "major head wound she received while vaulting at U.S.A. Gymnastics World. She slipped on the runway, tripped over the board, and smashed her head into the vault, cracking her head open."
Her accomplishments were legion: "She played baseball for the Atlanta Braves for four years. She received the Rookie of The Year award the first year she played. All of the team members thought that she was really cute and had a great sense of humor.
The National Baseball League will be donating $1 million to her family and will be putting her name in the Baseball Hall of Fame as being the youngest player in the National League and also the first female to play in a professional baseball league."
Justin Van Ausdal said he was a "retired Army general who was killed by a gang in Miami. He fought in World War V. He was also a skilled physicist . . .
He had $10 million when he died, all of which will go to the finding of a cure for cancer. While he was alive he was a devoted citizen and mayor of the city; he was up for re-election this year.
He was loved by all who knew him. The little kids called him Uncle J."
Byron Rodgers' obituary said he was "shot by his wife, because she was high after a weekend of driving Go Karts at the Sports Park." Rodgers was "proud of his hair that was as hard as a rock, because in his early years he put 56 gallons of hairspray a day on it."
He was also "proud of his pure grasshopper leg jacket that he made when he was plowing his cabbage patch."
Chuck Barton, who said he was "killed jumping out of a plane on a horse," started his own basketball team which "won NBA championships in 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2013 and 2014.
He also fought in World War III and found a cure for AIDS. He was the richest man in Utah."
Do you get the feeling these students are having a little trouble taking obituaries seriously?