What will they say about you when you’re gone?
I attended a funeral last week for a woman I had only recently come to know. She was 92 years old—a pillar of her community. Eloquent. Brilliant. Devout. Deeply religious.
The service itself was sparse and simple. Mostly prayers. Quiet reflections. No grand speeches. Just family.
First, several of her grandchildren spoke. Then her two daughters. Finally, her son.
Each shared something they had learned from her—small life lessons, passed down gently, etched permanently into their hearts.
One grandson spoke of her kindness. How she once lent him money to buy a car, on what he jokingly called “very favorable terms.” Which meant: pay me back when you can.
Her eldest daughter spoke of her parents’ marriage—how its devotion and tenderness set the standard for the generations that followed.
Her youngest daughter laughed as she recalled receiving the same holiday gift year after year: a book of stamps. “They’ll come in very handy,” her mother would say, “when you send letters.”
And her son told the stories only sons can tell.
How his mother would break up neighborhood fights without hesitation. How she insisted he wear a coat even on a 75-degree winter day—“It’s a winter 75,” she’d say. How she demanded he clap at neighborhood parades, because recognition mattered, and because she feared television was turning his generation into passive observers of life instead of participants.
Then he shared something deeper.
Early in his parents’ marriage, his father battled cancer. Fearing he was dying, his father began to withdraw from the family—thinking it would spare the children pain if they didn’t grow too attached.
His mother would have none of it.
“How do you want us to remember you?” she asked him.
As a loving, present patriarch?
Or as a distant, removed one?
By the end of the service, the room had done what rooms like that always do. We laughed. We cried. And we knew—without needing to be told—that a life had been well lived. That it had touched others. That it had left warmth behind.
Now contrast that with an obituary that ran in 2016:
“Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick, born Jan. 4, 1935, died alone on March 15, 2016. She is survived by six of her eight children, whom she spent her lifetime torturing in every way possible.”
Submitted by her children, the obituary went on to describe a woman they called cruel, abusive, and violent.
“Everyone she met, adult or child, was tortured by her cruelty… and hatred of the gentle or kind human spirit.”
There were no tears here. No softened memories.
“We celebrate her passing… and hope she lives in the afterlife reliving each gesture of violence, cruelty and shame that she delivered on her children.”
Wow.
“May she rest in peace” was clearly not on the table.
According to an Associated Press account, her children had been removed from her care in the 1960s and estranged for more than thirty years. Their experience was so severe it helped lead to changes in Nevada law allowing children to legally sever ties with abusive parents.
“Everything in there was completely true,” her son told the AP. He said the obituary was meant to call attention to child abuse—and yes, “to shame her a little bit.”
We’re taught that when someone dies, we shout the good and whisper the bad. Or at least remain silent. That’s what “paying your respects” is supposed to mean.
But not every life earns that courtesy.
Most of what we do in this world is a rehearsal for our funeral. No matter how carefully we curate our résumés, reputations, or public image, in the end we are summed up by others—by their memories, their experiences, their truth.
These two women shared almost nothing in common.
Except this:
Neither was remembered for accomplishments.
Both were remembered for how they treated people.
That is what remains.
And it’s something worth thinking about—if you care about your legacy.
The Valley Viewpoint 