You’ve probably stopped to think about what happens when you die. Not the afterlife—I mean the morning after. The moment someone sits down at a keyboard and starts deciding who you were.
We pretend an obituary is a tribute. A sign of respect. The final way to speak for the dead. But that’s a lie.
Death takes your breath; an obituary takes your narrative.
Look at the New York Times’ Sam Roberts. He writes obituaries. He dedicates his life to distilling human existence, claiming to speak for the departed. But as one astute commenter pointed out, this isn’t speaking for them. It’s speaking about them. And ‘about’ is always someone else’s job.
The dead cannot authorize the account. They cannot correct it. They cannot object to the trimmed paragraphs, the selected quotes, or the highlighted achievements. The deeper the obituary writer’s empathy, the clearer the unavoidable appropriation. You aren’t just remembered; you are shaped, packaged, and delivered to suit the needs of the living.
We think obituaries are a tribute to the deceased, but they are actually an appeasement for the living.
You might think there’s a simple workaround: write your own in advance. Sit down at your laptop, type out your truth, and hand it to someone you trust. Finally, you are speaking. Finally, you have control.
Except you don’t.
The grammar of death reveals a brutal truth: someone else always holds the power over memory. You can write the perfect self-summary, but you can’t force anyone to read it. You can’t stop them from editing it, softening it, or tossing it in the trash to write their own version instead.
Your only real legacy isn’t what you leave behind; it’s the story you manage to make others believe while you’re still here to tell it.
Every single one of us will eventually be someone else’s subject. The question isn’t whether you’ll be remembered, but who gets the final say on how. If you aren’t aggressively shaping your own narrative while you’re alive, you’re handing the pen to someone else for when you’re dead.
Stop pretending obituaries are the dead’s final statement. They are the living’s final imposition. The only defense? Speak up. Be loud. Be undeniable. Right now.
FAQ
Q: Isn't writing an autobiography the exact way to avoid being misremembered?
A: It's only a suggestion. An autobiography gives them the raw material, but the reader (and the obituary writer) ultimately decides which parts to use, edit, or ignore.
Q: What's the practical implication if I can't control my own memory?
A: It means you better start living your truth out loud right now, rather than hoping someone else magically pieces together your essence after you're gone.
Q: Are obituaries just a bad thing then?
A: They're a necessary evil. Society needs summaries to process death, but we should stop pretending they are objective truth. They are filtered narratives built to comfort the living.