I’ve been reading obituaries for years, long before I expected to find myself in one. When I was traveling, I would get a local paper and scan the obituaries to learn about the local population. Obituaries tell you a lot.

For instance, I spent a good deal of time with obituaries in Chicago. Since I was from a small, homogeneous Southern town, I was amazed at the variety of ethnic communities. People with long and sometimes unpronounceable names had their funeral services at various types of Orthodox churches, Catholic churches, Coptic churches, Protestant churches, and worship places of other religions. Many were union members, again something foreign to someone from the rural south.

In Nebraska, where I also spent time, the obituaries were different. The names, ethnicities, and the occupations were a little closer to what I was used to, but still very different.

Reading obituaries was a good way to spend a morning, learning about the people who lived in that area, and making up backstories for those who seemed most interesting.

Because I wasn’t from around there, I never encountered an obituary for someone I knew.

As I grew older, I regularly read the local obituaries, not to learn about the people so much as to learn who died. I frequently encountered someone I knew, someone who until just recently was alive and now wasn’t. But In reading all those obituaries, I realized what I’m beginning to think is a truth: our lives are determined much more by what we love than by what we do.

Just this morning, I read a long obituary of a CEO. The picture showed a nice looking guy, probably much younger than the person who just died. The obituary said that he was born, that he went to college, then to graduate school. He was employed and worked his way up to vice-president, then to CEO. He had a wife he had been married to a long time, several children, and a good many grandchildren.

I found myself wondering what he did all those years besides climbing the managerial ladder and procreating. Did he have passions for other things? Did he love music or books or food or long walks on the beach? Did he indulge himself and his wife with wild romantic treats? Did he do things that his grandchildren will remember into their old age? Was he the sort of friend whose friends will miss him for years?

I didn’t get any of that from his obituary.

Just down the page, there was one for an older lady. She wasn’t a CEO. So far as I could tell from the obituary, she had never had a job. But she was full of passion. The obituary noted that she loved to make people laugh. That she was a member of several activist groups and volunteered for many causes. She and her husband frequented concerts and plays. She outlived her husband, and years after he died, she died in an assisted living facility. But—again from her obituary—it appears that she lived a full life and affected a lot of people.

I don’t know whether anyone will write my obituary. It’s becoming more and more common to eliminate the obituary, along with the viewing and the burial. We’re moving into a different time, much more like the Vikings or the Indians who sent their loved ones to their eternal rest in a burst of flame. And I’m not opposed to this. I figure that once I’ve finished with this mortal coil, what happens to it then doesn’t matter much. I’ve asked for cremation.

But, in the event that someone—probably my wife or one of my children—does decide to pen an obituary, I hope they’ll think about what I’ve just written. I’ve done some things: got born, grew up, earned a living, etc., but none of that was much out of the ordinary. I do think, however, that I have some passions that go beyond the usual, probably beyond the normal.

I love my family, and I’ve done what I could to make their lives better. That includes staying married to Linda for more than sixty years. I’ve considered this to be a very good thing. I did not ask her opinion as I wrote this. I employed both my children for a while, and I like to think that they got more than a paycheck from the time they worked for me. I also try to spend time with my grandchildren, visiting on them grandfatherly wisdom whether they want it or not.

I’ve loved music, though, as pointed out by the head of the music department at Western Carolina, my love for music was considerably greater than my talent. However, I’ve enjoyed playing all these years, and those who had to listen have put up with it gracefully.

I’ve loved languages, although I’m not sure I have any greater talent for them than I have for music. And I loved the idea of knowing something today that I didn’t know yesterday.

It is important that we accomplish things. Most of us work hard at whatever we’re working at, and I don’t think many of us wake up in the morning thinking that today will be great if we don’t get anything done at all. It’s also important that we set our goals and reach them. That’s just another sort of accomplishment. I’m not saying that the things the CEO did were not important. But I don’t believe they defined either his life or his happiness with it.

Since I’ve asked for cremation when I die, I don’t expect to have to worry about an epitaph, especially one like Shakespeare’s (who curses whoever might dig up his bones). But, if anybody should need some hints for my obituary, I’m offering these. And it might be a kindness if you would do the same for those charged with trying to wrap up your life in a couple of hundred words.