Lately, I’ve been reading obituaries like they’re Yelp reviews.
I know how that sounds. Slightly morbid. Possibly unhinged. But I promise I’m not hoarding sympathy cards or shopping for urns. I’m just fascinated by people—and how we talk about them when they’re no longer around.
Obituaries are like these tiny final drafts of a person’s life. The last edit. The final paragraph. And when done well, they’re stunning. Beautiful, really. You read about people who “lit up every room,” who were “deeply loved,” who “poured into others,” and who “never met a stranger.” You read about the casserole queens, the community legends, the tireless volunteers, the big-hearted dads who showed up at every single game, even when they had gout.
Sometimes they read like poetry. Sometimes they read like they were ghostwritten by Oprah.
But every now and then, I wonder how much of it is actually true.
Because let’s be honest: we don’t speak ill of the dead.
We just don’t. It’s an unspoken rule. Even if Aunt Marlene made everyone cry at Christmas and once tried to get a waitress fired because her soup was “the wrong kind of hot,” her obituary will still say: “She was feisty, passionate, and knew what she liked.”
But if we dropped the polite filter and told the truth?
Some obituaries might sound like this:
- “He had a temper that made us glad he didn’t have access to the nuclear codes.”
- “Her family walked on eggshells when they were around her.”
- “He was rude to anyone in a service profession.”
- “She was racist.”
- “He had a favorite child, and we all knew it.”
- “She weaponized guilt like it was her spiritual gift.”
- “He thought ‘brutal honesty’ was a personality trait, not a warning label.”
- “She could hold a grudge longer than she held a job.”
- “He made sure everyone knew he paid for the meal—loudly and with sighing.”
- “She would have thrived in the HOA of a gated community in hell.”
Yikes, right?
It’s dark. But it’s honest. And that honesty makes me pause. It makes me wonder: what kind of obituary would people write for me?
Would it be glowing but edited within an inch of its life? Would someone need to get creative and write me into being better than I actually was? Or would it be real?
Because I want it to be real. Not airbrushed. Not inflated. Not the “LinkedIn bio” version of me dressed up in my Sunday best. I want it to sound like someone who actually lived—not just someone who was well-branded.
And more than anything, I want the people closest to me—the ones who knew the behind-the-scenes version, the “chronically running late, undercaffeinated, laundry everywhere” version—to read it and nod.
Because they saw the real me. And hopefully, they liked her.
See, it’s easy to impress strangers. It’s harder to live in such a way that the people who really know you still respect you. It’s easy to be charming in public, to toss out compliments in meetings, to offer encouragement on Instagram. It’s harder to be gentle in a kitchen full of dishes, or present during a tense bedtime routine, or kind to someone who’s really, really slow at the self-checkout lane.
But that’s where our real review is being written.
If I’m honest, there’s a gap sometimes between who I say I am and who I actually show up as in those moments.
I want to close that gap. I want the me at work, the me at home, the me stuck in traffic, the me on the phone with customer service for the fourth time trying to cancel a subscription—all of those mes—to sound like the same person.
Because I’ve seen what happens when people live double lives. When the public version is all praise and polish—and the private version is prickly, guarded, and difficult to love. I’ve seen people build reputations at the cost of relationships. And that’s not a legacy I’m interested in.
When it comes time to write my obituary, I don’t want anyone to have to stretch the truth. Not my kids. Not my husband. Not my coworkers or my barista or the woman who always seems to show up at TJ Maxx at the same time I do.
Your legacy isn’t the speech people give when you die. It’s the pattern of how you treated people when you were alive.
It’s not the words read in a church or printed on fancy cardstock with a stock photo of a sunrise. It’s the little things people remember when no one’s trying to be poetic.
Tell the stories that made you laugh or feel loved. The ones that made you snort or cry or both. The stories that feel a little too honest, a little too human, a little too me—but in the best way.
We don’t get to write our own obituaries. But we do get to write the life that leads to one.
And maybe—if we’re lucky, if we’re intentional, if we keep showing up with a little more humility than ego—the people we love won’t have to search for the good parts.
They’ll just tell the truth.
And for the record, if someone starts saying something false or ridiculous at my funeral—like “she always had such a peaceful presence” or “she never once said a cuss word out loud”—I fully expect my best friends to stand up, cause a scene, and tell the truth. Flip a chair if necessary. Use the mic. I’d do it for you.
A Sample Obituary (The Real Kind)
Rachel Richard did not go quietly — mostly because she never did anything quietly, ever. She came into the world curious, slightly stubborn, and with a deep commitment to asking too many questions about how everything worked. That never changed.
She loved her family with a big, stubborn, show-up kind of love — the kind that arrives with a pep talk, bad jokes, a playlist for the drive, and extra underwear packed in your suitcase “just in case”. She was the undisputed queen of carpool karaoke, belting out songs from every genre with song lyrics that may or may not have been correct. Many were gloriously misheard, but sung with full confidence.
She was the kind of person who would show up with snacks when you didn’t ask for them, and opinions when you definitely didn’t ask for them — both offered with love. She made people laugh in places you probably shouldn’t laugh, like funerals and serious HR meetings.
She believed that “just one more chapter” was always worth it, even at 2 AM, even if it meant the next day started with under-eye bags and extra coffee. She found humor in the most obscure corners of life — Facebook comment sections she had no business reading, old voicemail greetings, and weird bathroom stall notes — and made sure to share it with anyone who’d listen.
She spent her life wrestling with her ever-evolving faith — not as a box to check but as something to live out loud, question honestly, and hold with both hands, even when it got messy. She’d be the first to tell you she didn’t always get it right, but she kept showing up anyway.
Rachel believed in telling the truth kindly, hugging awkwardly, and apologizing first (most of the time). She deeply believed there’s no bad day that can’t be improved by good music, proper southern sweet tea like her Grandpa made, or a drive to nowhere with the windows down.
She’d want you to know she wasn’t always easy to live with — she started craft projects she never finished, left laundry in the dryer too long, picked the worst possible moments to pause everyone for a “let’s talk about our feelings” huddle (mid-bite, mid-nap, mid-argument — didn’t matter), and occasionally burned dinner while claiming she was “letting the flavors develop.”
But she loved hard. She forgave fast. She said “thank you” like she meant it. And she meant it every time.
She believed the best people were the ones who kept you honest and kept you laughing — often at the same time. She had no patience for inefficiencies, fake people, fake cheese, or fake butter.
If you’re reading this, she’d want you to tell the real stories: the ones that made you snort, the ones that made you feel safe, the ones that made you roll your eyes but secretly miss her a little more.
Her family would like you to know they wouldn’t trade a single burned dinner or surprise “big feelings” huddle for anything. Those imperfect moments were where they learned what real love looks like — messy, honest, and always worth it.
If you ask her friends what they’d say about her, they’d probably say:
- “She wasn’t afraid to laugh at herself — or ask for help.”
- “She always texted ‘on my way’ when she was still looking for her keys.”
- “She could be intense, but she genuinely tried to make people feel seen.”
- “She never had the garage code, but we would’ve trusted her with it.”
- “She kept your secrets, hyped your wins, and told you when you had toilet paper stuck to your shoe.”
- “She made things lighter, not heavier.”
Rachel made it her quiet mission to leave people better than she found them, whether they liked it or not. She leaves behind half-finished to-do lists, at least one cup of cold coffee she forgot about, an impressive collection of “to be read” books, and a whole lot of people who are better because she showed up exactly as she was.
Rachel L. Richard is a small-town farm girl turned suburbanite, a delightfully irreverent optimist, Mrs & Mama, floppy dog ear scratcher, lifelong learner, channel surfer, wanderer, believer, occasional creative, out-of-practice musician, cupcake addict, book devourer, and lover of all people.
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