Went by St. Michael’s Cemetery and paid my Memorial Day respects to Dad and Steve. Saw where Mom had done her thing and placed flowers and flags on their sites.
As you can see, Buzzy’s tombstone has inscribed on it his choice of his 3 life descriptors – Merchant, Politician and Air Force Pilot. My Mom has directed that she wants inscribed on her tombstone the three names that her grandkids call her. (My kids call her Lovey, Donna’s kids call her Happy and Lila’s kids call her Nana. Long story how that eventuated and I won’t bore you with it.)
Seeing Buzzy’s three inscriptions always makes me pause and think about what my three choices would be if I had to come up with them. Bottom line is, I don’t plan on having any on my tombstone. However, if forced to choose three summaries of my time here, I may have to stick with something along the lines “Good Father” and “Great Friend.” The third one though always trips me up. I feel like I should mention something that captures the 35 years that I worked on Base. However, “Mediocre Civil Servant” is not something I want to be saddled with for eternity. Maybe a simple “Decent Dude” would work too.
If you get a few minutes, think about your 3 life descriptors/epitaphs and see what you come up with. It’s not an easy task. To assist you, here is a legacy poem for you (click here.) John may have said it better and quicker though in this tune: