Be Yourself

Last week we buried my uncle. His send-off was fantastic. More than 1,000 people attended his wake including the governor of the state, his very large family and his beloved former employees. My cousin wrote and delivered a beautiful, moving eulogy at the funeral, the newspaper published an article about him, and the local fire fighters stood at salute when his hearse passed the station.

My uncle was a husband and father, an elected official who served his community for 18 years, a grassroots organizer involved in many campaigns — from the hyper-local to JFK’s presidential bid, and a business owner. After the services, one of my relatives said to me, “Wow, he led a larger-than-life existence.  I think I live a smaller-than-life existence.”  We both laughed a self-deprecating laugh that is part of our family’s DNA.

But later that night I wondered, what kind of life should we live? Are we wasting space if we live less-than-large lives? I hope not. I like to think the world needs the big, the medium and the small lives. Isn’t it just as good to make a profound impact on one life as it is to touch many lives?  That idea gave me comfort until I realized it was based on the clichés found on coffee mugs and cheesy plaques:

It takes all kinds.

Variety is the spice of life.

Never confuse having a career with having a life.

It is better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all.

Life is mostly froth and bubble; Two things stand like stone: Kindness in another’s trouble, Courage in our own.

So I turned to Google to see If I could find something more helpful and I stumbled upon this charming saying,

Little birdie in the sky, dropped a poopie in my eye, I didn’t scream, I didn’t cry, But I thanked the Lord cows can’t fly!

Well that confirms it, doesn’t it? There is a place in this world for the birds and the cows, for the front page heroes and the everyday ones too. And just as birds can never be cows and cows never birds, we too can only be who we are, big, small or otherwise. Some of us have wings and some of us do not. Some of us will have hundreds of mourners someday and some of us will have only a handful. And that is okay. And realizing that, I recalled and found inspiration in the words of the great Irish bard Oscar Wilde who once said,

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

Mr. Wilde would never be caught dead on a mug. (But he is probably rolling over in his grave to be quoted in a blog alongside the cow poop ditty.)