Who Says a Good Obituary Has to Be Dull?

 The traditional obituary is a gloomy collection of dry facts and chilly clichés. The internet has swept away space restrictions and made newspaper deadlines irrelevant. Social media has encouraged us to swap stories and celebrate our loved ones’ lives. Why should today’s tributes rely on the same dull script we followed 30 years ago? It’s time for the old-school obituary to slip into something more contemporary.

How To Write An Online Obituary is a new book just published by Melissa Jayne Kinsey. In the book, she shows step by step how to write a fresh, original tribute and create a memorable virtual memorial featuring photos, videos, and music.

In this interview, I chat with Marnie Summerfield Smith, a full-time memoir writer. We talk about how there is no such thing as an inconsequential life and no reason why everyone should leave some kind of record of their life story as a legacy for the future. Marnie explains a 3 step process to writing your memories and also options of what to do with the memoir when it is finished. If you have ever thought about penning a few lines of your life this episode will give you the tools and hopefully the inspiration to start.

In this episode, I interview David Sawyer the founder and CEO of TSOLife - The Story Of Your Life. TSOLife is a unique platform that allows you to create, store and share the story of your days. Whether it's your story or even that of a loved one, TSOLife makes it easy to preserve memories for future generations. Using TSOLife couldn't be simpler. 

For more information visit https://tsolife.com/

In the last six months, I have written 106 funeral services. Wrapped up in the mystery of those unwelcome days, are four valuable lessons I have learned. Lessons about life and how you can leave a digital legacy for your family. Helping 106 families face death teaches you about life.

"Talking about sex will not get you pregnant, neither will talking about a funeral kill you."

Said Gail Rubin, founder of A Good Goodbye.

Lesson Two - Life Is Short

We cannot judge a song by its duration

Nor by the number of its notes;

We must judge it by the way

it touches and lifts our souls.

Sometimes those unfinished

are among the most beautiful.

Helping 106 families face death teaches you about life. Death comes to us all. It comes mostly at times when you least expect it. It comes to the old, the sick, the young and the healthy. It comes. It will come to you.

In the last six months, I have written 106 funeral services. Wrapped up in the mystery of those unwelcome days, are four valuable lessons I have learned. Lessons about life and how you can leave a digital legacy for your family.

This is lesson one - Share The Stories of Your Life

The Legacy Recorder - We are working to support more people in documenting the people, experiences, and stories of their lives. The highlights, the low points and the seemingly mundane moments that combine to create a lifetime. Through one on one and DIY services, we aim to help you create a meaningful legacy.

Securing Your Digital Legacy Vivala.me is an easy to use platform that allows you to control exactly what happens to all of your documents, images, videos and more after you have died.

Stephanie Longmuir is a Funeral Celebrant and founder of my endnotes.com, Australia's first digital funeral planning service. Over the last seven years, she has led over 900 funeral and memorial services. Myendnotes is developed in response to the hundreds of families that she met who wished they had asked all those important questions of their loved one while there was still time.