Obituaries seem to color my life; I’ve written them, I read them, I ponder them during research. The histories of people and their deaths have been essential parts of my life in anthropology, journalism, and ministry.

I mentioned my former obituary-writing past in a sermon once — along with glory, grace, and salvation — and all that a dubious listener said to me afterward was, “Obituaries?” She was not impressed.

Perhaps you don’t care about your own obituary, since, after all, you’ll be dead, but you might want to have a conversation with your friends and children beforehand, just to be sure. Do you want them to present you to the world as they see you, or as you see yourself? Is there a difference?

These questions pounded through my brain this week as I read an obituary for a dear mentor whose life was reduced in print to bland obscurity, and I was aghast. Who would write such drivel — her (possibly) mourning children or an overtired funeral attendant?

She was described as a member of her church who served as church organist and worked as a piano teacher, having moved to Florida from New Jersey. Boring, vanilla, and partially incorrect, but the main point was that the poor woman was dead, wasn’t she? They got that part right.

Actually, my friend, whose children rarely visited her in Texas (not New Jersey), was the valedictorian at Eastman, one of the finest music schools in the country. She was a composer, a music critic, and a respected academic authority in our city.

As a hobby, she built a full-sized harpsichord in her living room across from her grand piano, a Steinway. You could find her in the afternoon reading music scores; she described how she could hear the full orchestrations in her head, and invited us to “hear,” too, and read along.

When she played for herself in the evenings, the neighbors turned off their televisions and opened their windows to hear her. She took up the cello at age 67.

Her husband had been a doctor, and they did Society things before retiring. We played together once at a country club function, where she also graciously accompanied a retired, but warbly, singer. She was gracious. She did fill in at churches when music was needed, and she did take on occasional piano students who bravely knocked on her door and asked for help on musical passages.

She also had a temper! Fellow musicians, lazy students, and even other drivers on the road got a taste of it. Her friends mourned with her as carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis slowly stole some of her gifts, and age took others. She was quirky, always buying the same type of dog and giving each the same name, and she was lit when she came back from Mardi Gras each year with enough beads to share with friends.

She wasn’t vanilla, by any means, but I’m not sure her grown children knew that, or remembered it. Sometimes, your children don’t know the whole you, do they?

They didn’t know you when you were a young, up-and-coming scholar, or when you were a feisty, clever youngster making your way and your money. They didn’t know your trials and accomplishments at work and in society while they were learning to use a spoon and sing the alphabet; they depended on you, and you supported them. Then they were off on their own, rarely visiting and occasionally calling, happy to share about their own lives but not always as interested in yours.

And, now, perhaps, you’ve come to a time in your life where you’re reading Marie Kondo’s tips on decluttering your life, and you’re tucking away your mementos in a small box to be discarded without question when you die.

You might consider a second box, just for your obit writer. Pop in some music programs, pictures of you at Yellowstone, a high school track ribbon, a ring from a former lover, and a ticket stub to an indie film — anything that lets them know you were not just the breadwinner or the “maternal maker of my food,” as my own young son once described me.

As a former obituary writer, I am often saddened by standard obits cobbled together at a funeral home, or lovingly but one-sidedly written by a single adult child. These documents get the job done during a stressful time, but obits are forever — in print and online.

Writing a good obituary is a craft, an art that requires skillful and sympathetic listening and questioning in order to represent the wholeness — the fullness — of a person’s life. But, what if you don’t want your wholeness aired to the rest of the world? A good obit can reflect the real you, with some softened edges.

How will you be portrayed in perpetuity? The time to decide is now, while you still can, if you care.

I have already told my kids that I don’t need an obit, or a funeral — birth and death dates will do, and any ancestry-inclined relatives can look up my work later. If anyone wants to remember me while eating a slice of pizza, New York-style, that would be cool, but it won’t matter to me one whit, really, because I won’t be there.

If you want an obit, though, and you need someone to write it, let me know while I’m still here; I’ll do it for a song.