Resignation
What will you write on your tombstone?
Cemeteries are like resignation letters. They call out, headstones begging to be read as if someone were leaving a place of employment and on to the next adventure. They’re an index of cards, letters written to remind future generations of who once was there and where we will inevitably be.
I’ve been thinking a lot about resignation letters, the gilded words I’ll type out to signify the end of one thing and the start of the next. There’s poetry to these moments in my mind because, without a doubt, the heartache of leaving is eclipsed by the joy of newness. In some cases, the leaving is a long time coming, the moments of treading water having finally come to their conclusive end. In others, the departures are more sudden, like a dive from a 3m board above the water, gracefully, elegant, and…well, I’d be prone to bellyflop, so perhaps we’ll move on from that.
Regardless, headstones and resignation letters signify an end and hearken to beginnings. In the case of our human mortality, we know that from the moment of our birth, we will face the sweet darkness and embrace death. It’s written in our bones, our cells remind us of it daily, and we have the visceral gut punch of the news to highlight that not all death is noble or just. In the case of resignation, we look to our triumphs and tragedies, the stories we…
