They’ll miss you ... right?

I love reading obituaries. Not because I consider myself particularly morbid or fascinated with death, but because they are usually some of the most intriguing pieces of literature you can encounter. Obituaries are like condensed biographies. You get all the noteworthy matters of someone’s life and decide whether or not his or her biography, if they have one, is actually worth reading about. Earlier this month, Dorothy Podber, a 75-year-old former art-scene wild child, passed away. Her name might not mean much to us, but she contributed to one of Andy Warhol’s works of art that brought in a record-breaking price at auction.\nIn her New York Times obituary, she was noted as being most-well known for shooting a pistol through a few of Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe’s portraits. She just asked Warhol “if she could shoot a stack” of them. The pop artist consented because he assumed she was referring to shooting photographs, not bullets. He later requested that she not return to his studio because she was “too scary.”\nOne of the wounded paintings, “Shot Red Marilyn” sold for $4 million in 1989. In May of 2007, Warhol’s painting “Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car 1)” sold for $71.7 million. The most expensive painting ever sold is Jackson Pollock’s “No.5, 1948,” sold for $140 million. When I read an obituary like Dorothy Podber’s, it makes me realize I want to have some impact on this world by the time I die. Reading obituaries can help one understand what they want to be remembered for. Perhaps even more importantly, it determines how one will be remembered. \nDo you want your obituary to boast your career, your family or your good deeds? Perhaps you want to have it all. Do you want to be remembered in your city, state, nation or throughout the entire world? \nPerhaps Dorothy Podber was a nobody who is only well-known for something she did on a bad acid trip. But she was somehow commemorated for her off-beat personality and unorthodox composure. In a 2007 picture of her, she is seated on a Native-American style sofa chair, decked in a cheetah print jacket, black pants and tube top. Not to mention she topped her ensemble off with a creme hat wrapped with a purple ribbon. Now that was a classy broad. \nAs insignificant a figure as Podber might have been, she marched to the beat of her own drum and left an impression on people. \nGranted, fascist dictators and infamous murderers get to be in the Times’ obituaries, as well. So let’s hope that you too would like to be remembered for having a positive impact on people.\nIf you ever find yourself lost in your hopes for the future, think of what you would want your obituary to say. Sure, you can always plan your funeral in advance and request to have your tombstone personally engraved beforehand. \nBut the obituarists of the world won’t sugarcoat your existence. Therefore, I strongly suggest you try to make something out of it while you can.