How Will You Talk About Your Career When You’re Dead?

Okay that’s a trick question: you won’t talk about it because you’ll be dead. But what about right before you’re dead, say? Or what if you go the Walter George Bruhl, Jr. route, which, as Ann Friedman put it on Twitter this morning, makes a great case for writing your own obituary:

Walter George Bruhl Jr. of Newark and Dewey Beach is a dead person; he is no more; he is bereft of life; he is deceased; he has rung down the curtain and gone to join the choir invisible; he has expired and gone to meet his maker.

In a genre where you’re supposed to write distantly about a person’s life, making them sound impressive and accomplished, the way he talks about the role work played in his life, is hilarious and much closer to how all obituaries would read if we were all being honest:

Walter was a Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War, having served from October 1951 to September 1954, with overseas duty in Japan from June 1953 till August 1954. He attained the rank of sergeant. He chose this path because of Hollywood propaganda, to which he succumbed as a child during World War II…

He served an electronics apprenticeship at the Philadelphia Naval Yard from 1956–61; operated Atlantic Automotive Service Stations in Wilmington during 1961–62; and was employed by the late great DuPont Co. from 1962–93. (Very few people who knew him would say he worked for DuPont, and he always claimed he had only been been hired to fill a position.)

…In 1973 he was promoted to manufacturing engineering technologist and was employed in that capacity until, after 31 years with The Co., he was given a fine anniversary dinner and a token gift and then “downsized” in December 1993.

Reading this reminds me of Austin Kleon’s daily habit of waking up in the morning and reading the obituaries. As he writes in his new book:

Obituaries are like near-death experiences for cowards. Reading them is a way for me to think about death while also keeping it at arm’s length. Obituaries aren’t really about death; they’re about life. . . . Reading about people who are dead now and did things with their lives makes me want to get up and do something decent with mine. Thinking about death every morning makes me want to live.

Okay and back to Walter George Bruhl, Jr., this has nothing to do with Billfold-related matters but it’s still the best part:

There will be no viewing since his wife refuses to honor his request to have him standing in the corner of the room with a glass of Jack Daniels in his hand so he would appear natural to visitors.

Cremation will take place at the family’s convenience, and his ashes will be kept in an urn until they get tired of having it around. What’s a Grecian Urn? Oh, about 200 drachmas a week.

DAD JOKES: the best jokes.

Now let’s all spend this Monday deciding how we want people to talk about our jobs when we die.

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