HAVE YOU DRAFTED YOUR OBIT YET? NO, IT'S NOT MAUDLIN!

Here's a guess. You too may have reached that point in life when you not only read the obits, you muse about what yours might look like. By the way, this is not just an old person's reflection, for I've known people who've already thought about it in their 20's and 30's. Lets call it: A sense of their own history!

Just this month, celebrities as young as Nora Efron and as old as Ernest Borgnine and Tony Martin have been memorialized in exquisitely literate obituaries. Now what makes reading them so valuable is they tell the story of how one of your fellow travelers managed to make it in this ornery old world.

What might YOU have to say about you? At least about the you you want the world to remember?

You've got only one picture and about 400 words to do it. Which picture? Which words? Ah, not so easy is it!  After all, you've done quite a bit in your life, and there are a great many photographic sides to you. Seizing just the right ones for family and posterity won't be easy.

Since I started this, I suppose I should at least leave you with MY parameters:

* hopefully the words will catch the cadence of my loves and labors: (1) the family and friends I have adored throughout my life (2) the work in which I may have achieved the most good with my fellow man

* hopefully the photo will be a candid not a posed shot taken sometime in mid-life; when I was still young enough to have dreams yet old enough to understand dreams have borders

OK, those are MY obituarial thoughts. Hopefully not too self-absorbed, but enough for the casual reader to realize I once was here. Now it's your turn. No life is a destination of only a few steps, but try to choose the few most worth recalling at your funeral. After all, you won't be there, so this could be your best chance...