Passing It On

Are you a Tigger or an Eeyore?

Somehow it’s fitting that Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch uses characters from A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh to challenge us as he confronts his own mortality in a futile battle with pancreatic cancer.

Although Pausch concedes that the cancer will ultimately win, his courageous, life-affirming public stance since receiving the terminal diagnosis has probably turned more gloomy Eeyore-types into bouncy Tiggers than anyone could imagine.

Pausch has become something of an Internet superstar with his “The Last Lecture” video, which had been downloaded some 10 million times before ABC News told his fascinating story again this week. The ABC report also included interviews with several people whose own lives had been transformed by Pausch’s uplifting lecture, which includes this line: “If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you.”

Married with three young children, Pausch acknowledges that he is concerned that his family soon will be “pushed off a cliff.” But, he says, “I have some time to sew some nets to cushion the fall.”

Such devotion, foresight and determination are what we should all aspire to. After all, none of us knows when our own families will be pushed over a cliff. This post by Tori at the of personal value  blog, talks about how “The Last Lecture” relates to an ethical will, something any of us can leave “to cushion the fall.”

To learn more about Pausch and videos and books about “The Last Lecture,” go here. Be forewarned, though, the ABC News report has sparked lots of activity at the site.

Larry Lehmer is a personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site or send him an e-mail.

Randy Pausch photo courtesy of nimboo.

Life on the Death Beat: It’s not your parents’ obituary

There’s a maxim in journalism that goes roughly like this: “The average person is guaranteed of getting his name in the paper twice in his lifetime – when he’s born and when he dies. Don’t screw either of those up.”

For many of us, our public legacies reside in the obituaries that appear in print a day or two after our death. Hopefully, our families and others close to us will keep us in their hearts beyond that date, but those newsprint tributes are often the last written chapter to our life story.

The late British writer Quentin Crisp once said, “An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing.”

I encourage people in my legacy letter writing classes to write their own obituaries. When faced with the challenge of condensing your life to 250 words or so it forces you to focus on those things most important to you. That focus is critical in writing a legacy letter or ethical will and is a good starting point for a full-blown personal history.

Plus, in these days of paid death notices, it’s important to document your life story in such a way that truly reflects your life as succinctly as possible.

I attended a workshop on obituary writing at the recent national conference of the Association of Personal Historians. Prize-winning obituary writers Larken Bradley (The Point Reyes Light), Alana Baranick (Cleveland Plain Dealer) and Kay Powell (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) lamented the paid-obituary trend and represented the finest of what is something of a dying breed at U.S. newspapers, the professional obituary writer.

Fortunately, APH members like myself can provide the same services that newspapers are abandoning. There’s also help available on line. Check out Obit magazine or the Obituary Forum run by Alana. She’s also co-written a guide to obituary writing, “Life on the Death Beat.”

Larry Lehmer is a personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site or send him an e-mail.

Flickr photo courtesy of Robert of Fairfax.

Jottings from the world of personal history

 

Ethical wills have been much in the news lately.

For those unfamiliar with the term, an ethical will is a specific form of legacy letter in which a person passes on hopes and beliefs in much the same way that a legal will passes on material goods. An ethical will is a non-legal document.

Of all the people killed in the terrorist attacks of 9/11, it is estimated that less than a third of them had a legal will. Even fewer had ethical wills. While the financial details of a person's estate can be sorted out after that person's death, their hopes and beliefs are gone forever without an ethical will.

These newspapers have carried articles on ethical wills recently: Philadelphia Inquirer, Orange County Register (reprinted in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel), the Chicago Tribune and Montgomery Advertiser. (Caution: Newspaper links are notoriously fickle; these may not work by the time you read this.)

Nice job, Kathleen. Lots of people try their hand at writing for the Internet. Some are good writers; most are not. It's a particular joy when you find a site that's a delight to read. Kathleen Bell has just such a site. She writes a lot about her family - past and present - and she does it with such style and grace that you feel as if you've been invited to a chat in an old friend's home. I'm sure she won't mind if you drop in.

He said it. "If we want our stories to be known, we need to do it ourselves. We can't wait for other people to do it for us." - Wilbur Howard, founder of Lansing (Mich.) Area African-American Genealogical Society.

Just for fun. Click on over to www.anagramsite.com and plug in a few family names to come up with some interesting combinations to spring on folks at your next family gathering. (Example: Actor Tom Cruise comes out "So I'm cuter). How about you?

Flickr photo courtesy of BugMan50.

Little Miss Ultimate Gift

 

The Ultimate Gift, the movie, opens today across America.

The film's producers offered a sneak preview of the film last summer to personal historians and people in the financial services industry because of its message, which basically is that there's more to life than money.

That ties in well with the legacy letters and ethical wills that I offer through my company, When Words Matter. Ethical wills pass on a person's hopes and beliefs in much the same way a legal will passes on material goods.

Some may find the film preachy, simple and overly sentimental, but it makes its points clearly and dramatically. Plus, it has an appealing cast, including Abigail Breslin, last year's breakout child star in Little Miss Sunshine, a role that earned her an Academy Award nomination.

The film's producers also have unfurled a slick marketing campaign for the film, which is based on a popular book by the same name. On their website you can buy all manner of products, from charm bracelets to journals, check out clips from the film and much more.

Flickr photo of Abigail Breslin courtesy of LAKAN346.