On Mortality
reflections on death, and whats really important
We’ve been talking about death a lot this week.
Last week, on the drive to school, my six-year-old asked me: “What can you bring with you when you die?”
“You can’t bring anything.”
The conversation devolved (maybe the wrong thing to say to a six year old?) She was devastated that she couldn’t bring lovely — a small blanket she has had since she was a baby — that she sleeps with every single night. We talked about how she wasn’t dying for a really long time, and how death is this separation from everything physical.
When you die, nothing comes with you. Your physical body moves on. Everything else moves on. The things we accumulate, the objects we hold onto — none of it follows.
That’s the core argument in Die with Zero by Bill Perkins. Perkins puts it plainly: “In the end, the business of life is the acquisition of memories.” We spend so much of our lives hoarding things — money, objects, status — and none of it comes with us.
So it makes no sense to let opportunities pass us by for fear of squandering our money. Squandering our lives should be a much greater worry. - Bill Perkins
Later, we talked about cremation vs. burial. How much it costs to die. Why people die when they are old. And sometimes when they are young. How it sometimes happens way to fast and sometimes the person knows its just their time. Even if its the later, how it always comes too fast and time together feels far to short. The reason death has been on my kids (and my) mind this week goes beyond that one car ride.
This past week, my wife Andi’s grandma, Marilyn, passed away, and we packed all the kids up in the car and drove to Michigan for the funeral. Andi went up a few weeks ago to spend a few last moments with her and then wrote a beautiful eulogy (except below!) honoring her memory and who she was.
Marilyn was an excellent cook and baker. I can guarantee you’ve never tasted better rolls and applesauce than hers. She made not one, not two, not three, but NINE different types of homemade pies (and multiple of each type) for my wedding and people still rave about them (and just the fact that my then 78-year-old grandma made them all!). She was an entrepreneur and pioneer in Michigan farming. She loved to read. She loved family history and was constantly documenting and collecting photos - she had cabinets filled with photo books and walls filled with 3x5 prints of people she loved and who loved her back. She was generous, often outrageously so, just like her dad. She was a good listener and also gave the best back scratches. She was strong-willed, hardworking, fiercely loyal, and deeply family-oriented. She truly was a force to be reckoned with.
Although I only knew Marilyn for a small fraction of her life — she was one of the first people Andi wanted me to meet — she truly was a force to be reckoned with.
I also had the honor of being one of the pallbearers at her funeral yesterday.
That funeral also happened to fall on my birthday.
Standing there, I found myself thinking about how special it was that Andi got to have her grandma for this long. And then I started remembering my own grandparents — most of whom passed away when I was in high school. Small things started surfacing.
One of my grandmas was a painter and a gardener. She loved growing things. Her garden was the epitome of a chaos garden — everything just tossed together, but bright flowers everywhere. In the summers, I’d go up to stay with her in Sacramento. She’d take her watercolor paints down by the river, and I’d stack rocks and pick blackberries in the heat of the sun. I knew if I left enough on the vine — if I showed enough restraint to eat the basket before I’d get home — she’d make a pie. And then she’d make another one, out of cut rhubarb and strawberries from her garden.
My other grandma lived much closer to us growing up. I remember getting dropped off Saturday mornings while my parents worked and playing tetherball in the backyard and hours and hours of rummy. I remember crying when I lost and coming back determined to beat her the next time. There was this big jar of peanut M&Ms that I’d sneak a handful of whenever she wasn’t looking, and always hot dogs and Chef Boyardee on the side. I’d hide in the large cabinet in the corner of the kitchen and eat black olives off my fingers. Or hide in the closet where she kept her dime slot machine.
I remember my grandpa, too. He’d give me a couple of dollars if I helped him wash his car. He washed it every single morning — up at 5:30 or 6, polishing it, then driving to the same diner every day for the same breakfast. If you woke up early enough, you could go with him. He’d tell the best stories.
Here’s the thing: it’s hard now, decades later, to even remember those stories. I remember once, in high school, complaining to my mom — “He always tells the same ones.” It didn’t bother me when I was a kid. But in high school, I was impatient. I’ve already heard these. They were good the first ten times but I don’t want to hear them again.
I’d give a lot to hear them again now.
Decades later, I can’t remember a single one of those stories. I wish I could. I wish I had written some of them down.
You remember the essence of people you loved. My kids never got to know my grandparents. They got to meet Andi’s grandma — their great-grandparent— which is rare and special. But they’ll never know my grandparents. They might pick up fragments, stories I pass on and tell. Photos in albums.
The reality is: you get maybe two generations who truly remember you. Unless you’re famous (or infamous?) how many people do we actually remember from a century or two back? How many stories survive?
My college roommate and I used to go back and forth on this idea from Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. The core of it is simple: live a story worth telling.
And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can't go back to being normal; you can't go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time.
Live a story worth telling. Be present to the story you are living right now.
Twenty or thirty years after you die, even the memories of you will start to slip away from this earth. Depending on what you believe, what comes after may look very different. But it doesn’t change the fact that this life is temporal. Fleeting. Your legacy matters, but it too is temporary — maybe two generations, maybe three, and then it fades.
Living life to its fullest isn’t about maximizing all of your time. Sometimes it’s about un-maximizing it.
I can’t remember the things I found so critical and urgent working at FiveStars. I can’t remember the early firefighting that stressed me out at Lyft. Those things felt enormous in the moment. They’re gone.
What I do remember: the first moment I held Lucy. Teaching her to ride her bike. Winnie’s mischievous half-smile and how we called her “troubles” when she was two. I remember time spent with friends like a crazy road trip up Ruta 40 or getting lost in the Amazon. I remember getting stranded in the Stockholm airport with Andi on our first international trip.
Living life to its fullest is really about deep personal connection. Spending time with the people who matter. Figuring out how you show up to every moment with a deep sense of presence and attention because life is really that short.
When you have kids, it becomes even clearer. It’s about helping them become the best version of themselves. One small ripple can become a big one over the course of their entire life. For me, one of the clearest ripples from my dad is generosity. I remember watching how he’d carry small envelopes with cash so it would be easy for him to give to anyone in need. Those moments (I hope) show up into how I operate today.
What are the things you do that carry through decades? That’s what I want — at work, in how I talk about people, in how I treat them. And at home, with my family.
As I stress about customer escalations, about AI, about whatever the urgent thing is this week — I keep coming back to one question.
What story do I actually want told at my funeral?
Thank you for sharing this ✨✨🩵🩵
Good advice all around and great to realize early. My prayers to your whole family.