This week I read the book Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire by Jen Hatmaker. It’s hard for me to describe Jen Hatmaker – I think she would lead with “author” but that doesn’t quite cut it. She is a Christian author who grew up in an Evangelical faith and, with her husband, worked in the church for years. A few years ago, they publicly announced their support for the LGBTQ community and her books, published by a Christian publisher, were pulled from print immediately. It became a whole thing with a lot of personal fallout and pain for her family. They held true to their convictions and she spent a lot of time in recent years getting grounded in who she is, at her core. This book is about that journey and what she is still learning.

I’ve been thinking a lot over the past couple years about these big questions: who am I? Who do I want to be? What values are most important to me and how do I live a life aligned with those values? It’s a lot to think about and I don’t have much to share about it right now, but I can say that something from her book intersected with today’s New York Times front page and I can’t stop thinking about it.

The contents of that front page (and several inside pages) are the names of people who have died from Covid-19 and a brief phrase or two from their obituaries that said something about who they were. It is, of course, terribly sad to see the scale of loss we are enduring. Every one of those people had people who knew them as they made their way through this world. It is also fascinating to see these obituaries condensed down to the most essential details about their lives.

Jose Torres, 73, was a restaurateur, favored by salsa music stars. Bassey Offion, 25, saw friends at their worst but brought out the best. Maxwell M. Mozell, 90, founded the Association for Chemoreception Sciences. And Elmer J David, 90, had respect for every living creature.

One of the chapters in Hatmaker’s book that speaks to me most at this moment is about understanding how you are wired, what things about you are simply what they are, and unlikely to change. She writes about how we are all exactly enough, exactly as we are, and how the world too often pushes us to be otherwise. Women are often criticized no matter how we show up, but who we are is who we are, to some extent. She writes about how our culture encourages us to all be “Mega Women” with big personalities and kick-ass ambition, until it doesn’t. And we too often criticize “Modest Women” who have no interest in as spotlight or being loud or screaming for everything to change all the time, but provide stability and love and connection. “Mezzo women”, who fall somewhere in between and get sort-of overlooked altogether while they are steadfastly keeping workplaces and communities moving forward. I’m not saying any of this as well as she does, but suffice it to say that it was really a relief to me to read what she wrote about “Mezzo women”, which is probably where I see myself. Too often, though, I feel as though maybe I should be doing more, making more progress, being louder, and leading in a more prominent way. But I don’t think that’s how I’m wired.

This all came to mind when I read through the names in the Times today. You may have heard of the exercise of writing your own obituary as a way to figure out how you want to spend your time or what you hope to accomplish. Well, this got me thinking about an even harder exercise: what would my obituary say if it had to be distilled into 15 words or less? What would that say about my wiring and what is most essential about me that I should embrace going forward?

I can assure you, that no one would put “commitment to exercise” in my obituary. I am genuinely full of admiration.

And I’ll never be that guy. But wouldn’t I like to meet him?

I cannot tell you how much I wish that were me. I have dreamy visions in my head of being the “open-door neighbor” who is always willing to let someone crash on their couch or make more food, and never gets flustered or sick of other people. Alas, I’m not. I’m too uptight and too attached to my own solitude. It is just not how I’m wired. But man to do I have a lot of love in my heart for people that are.

Is there any greater sign of integrity than being remembered as both soft-spoken and genuine?

And that one. That one breaks my heart but also comes back to this whole thing about finding solid ground in who we are. My prayer for Myra is that she didn’t suffer too much for having been underestimated, that she knew her capabilities and was proud. She was obviously not a Mega Woman, but she could have been Modest or Mezzo and she was enough, just as she was.

I have some thoughts percolating about what I would hope my tiny obituary would say. Though I haven’t yet hit on the combination of words I’d be most happy with, it seems like figuring them out might make for a really useful little guideline for how to live as the person I’m wired to be. I could look at it when making decisions and ask myself “Does this line up with that description? Or are you trying to be someone you’re just not?”

What would you want yours to say?