Publisher's Synopsis
In this delightful book--always touching and often funny about a very serious subject--Paul Mast, a priest for over fifty years in the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, focuses not on how or when we will die but on how we can enhance our legacy by pondering this question: Knowing you will die, how then will you live the rest of your time on Earth? The tool he uses is teaching how to write a Living Obituary--something you start writing now, at whatever age, and update regularly. Mast points out, "While the subject of the book is about writing our own death notice, the focus is really about persuading us to engage with our death as part of viewing our entire life (that is, our legacy) as a work-in-progress." Along the way, the author gives a short history and many examples of obituaries--including how the practice started, continues to develop, and has become a way of making profit for the funeral industry, the media, and even professional "obit writers." A Living Obituary (written in first person singular), can be used to identify or change the direction we choose for the rest of our life--our "life before death," as the author puts it. Writing our own obituary as a prelude to "jumpstarting your own legacy" focuses not on a question--what comes after death--but on the period at the end of the sentence, "Let me tell you about my (mostly) well-lived life."
