Her death came quietly, and I suppose, unexpectedly for so many of us. Her obituary, together with a photograph, appeared in the New York Times: “Mary Oliver, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, whose work, with its plain language and minute attention to the natural world… died at 83…” Diagnosed and treated for lymphoma since 2015, the many obituaries paid tribute to her legacy of award-winning poetry and prose, noting how she “often described her vocation as the observation of life.” Yet it was her poem, “When Death Comes,” from her first volume of New and Selected Poems and appearing in the Washington Post obituary, that, for me, truly captured the person behind the poetry, describing how she intended to approach death, and yet making it clear how she would continue to live for whatever time she had remaining.
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
(In: New and Selected Poems, V. 1, 2004)
Oliver’s words lingered in my mind for days, not only a statement of how she lived and wrote, but the legacy she wished to leave behind. It left me thinking about obituaries written for many I’ve known and they did not often capture the essence of the person. I recalled an article I’d read several years ago by writer Lloyd Garvey, remarking that sometime earlier, “somebody quite wise–I think it was my rabbi–suggested that people should write their own obituaries. Now. Regardless of age or medical condition. That way,” he said, “you’ll think about how you want to be remembered and what you want to accomplish in the rest of your life.” (The Huffington Post, January 16, 2009).
Former leadership guru, Peter Drucker, once told a story in The Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done: “When I was thirteen I had an inspiring teacher of religion who one day went right through the class of boys asking each one, “What do you want to be remembered for? None of us, of course, could give an answer. So, he chuckled and said, “I didn’t expect you to be able to answer it. But if you still can’t answer it by the time you’re fifty, you will have wasted your life.” The question, “What do you want to be remembered for?” is one, he stated, that induces you to renew yourself. You’re forced to see yourself as a different person: the person you want to become.
In her poem, “Cover Photograph,” Marilyn Nelson answers the question, “What do you want to be remembered for?” with the repetition of the phrase “I want to be remembered” in each stanza, describing the different aspects of herself that define who she is but also, who she wants to become:
I want to be remembered
As a voice that was made to be singing
The lullaby of shadows
As a child fades into a dream…
I want to be remembered
as an autumn under maples:
a show of incredible leaves…
I want to be remembered
with a simple name, like Mama:
as an open door from creation,
as a picture of someone you know.
(In: Mama’s Promises: Poems, 1985)
As I grow older and perhaps, because my life has been touched by cancer and by heart failure, I think more often about how I’d like to be remembered when my time comes. While I’m not eager to consider mortality, asking myself how I want to be remembered raises the question of what else and what more I want to do with my life. I agree with Drucker: Asking yourself, “What do you want to be remembered for?” is one that induces you to renew the person you are…to be, as Mary Oliver described, a “bride to amazement” or bridegroom “taking the world in his arms,” to be fully alive–and grateful– for however long we inhabit the earth.
Writing Suggestions:
How you want to be remembered? What more do you envision for your life? What things do you want yet to do before you die? What is the legacy you wish to leave behind?
This week, try writing your own obituary or eulogy. What would you say about yourself? Think about the things that really matter, the things that will ultimately define your life’s legacy, and the way in which you would like to be remembered by others. What more do you want to do with your life? You might even begin with Mary Oliver’s words, “When death comes,” or Marilyn Nelson’s, “I want to be remembered…”
