Dear Reader,
Today our guest writer is Peggy P. Sutton, one of the 2021 Honorable Mentions from my Write a DearReader Contest. The quality of writing in the 2021 Write a DearReader Contest was outstanding. Thank you so much Peggy for sharing your story with us.
Russell's Obituary
A week before his 95th birthday, my friend Russell asked me to type his obituary. I swallowed quickly and said, "It would be an honor. I'd be happy to help, so when you need it, it will be ready." I tried to emphasize 'when' as though it was an abstract vague time in the future. In truth, Russell had been in poor health, and 95 was just a week away.
He sent me several pages from a yellow legal pad, filled with careful printing that was still a struggle to read in places. I meticulously typed information about his siblings, children, and wife. Russell and his wife had been married 62 years. That gave me pause. They were married longer than I have been alive. When he lost his wife a few years ago, they had been together for nearly all of his life. How did he survive that?
As I typed in his education, career highlights, and offices held in civic organizations, I felt a strange realization; this is it. This is his life boiled down to part of a column in the local newspaper. I thought about his career achievements and awards, and thought those were probably really important at the time. They probably consumed a lot of his time and energy. And yet, a couple of decades later, the immediacy, the stress of the moment had faded away. What was left was a curious recounting of a life, but not the details that made it memorable and, hopefully, happier than not. I read with interest that he and his wife had lived in 11 places during their marriage. I thought about the new starts, the goodbyes to old neighbors and neighborhoods, the moving logistics that probably seemed overwhelming at the time.
Reading other obituaries has never given me the same feeling. Perhaps because I was typing the notes, and this seemed more immediate. I've only known Russell as an old man. He was a senior citizen when I met him nearly 20 years ago. This gave me a small glimpse of what his life was like when he was younger, healthier, busy with so many clubs, committees, promotions, and relocations. Would he, I wondered, have done anything differently if he could see into the future?
It made me think about what my obituary would say, years from now, one hopes. But the listing of career notes would not convey the way work and stress can take over my life. And yet, soon enough, that career will just be lines in a column in the local paper, noticed or not. I remind myself that all this pressure will be distilled into a small amount of ink on a quickly recycled page of newsprint. As I'm beginning to realize, this is not what's important. Will it matter a year from now, five years, ten?
Could I possibly let go of some of this constant worry that more needed to be done? The habit of rushing is a difficult one to break. I am gradually getting better at slowing down more and stressing less. I have discovered leisure is a garden in need of constant care. I smile more, I take more deep breaths, and try not to be weighed down by the crisis of the day. More and more often, I stop to watch the hummingbirds at my feeders, pause to enjoy the sound of my husband's laugh, and savor a little extra time with my dog.
Russell died a couple of months later. I keep his obituary handy, to remind me of what really counts.
-- Peggy P. Sutton
Honorable Mention, 2021 Write a DearReader Contest
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
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